Please refer questions to Jeffrey Moose, 206.467.6951 or jmoose@jeffreymoosegallery.com.
Contemporary Chinese artist Long Gao, a recent immigrant to the Puget
Sound area under the special INS catagory of "Cultural Treasure", will open
a solo exhibition of his sculpture, paintings and prints at Jeffrey Moose
Gallery on Friday, June 22nd with a reception from 5:30 to 8:30 PM. The show
will be on display through July 28th.
Indeed, Mr. Gao is now OUR national treasure, with a book of his
stone-carved prints, or Image Seal Cuttings, now in the collections of the
US Library of Congress and the libraries of the Universities of Washington
and North Carolina. His celebrated design for a traditional Chinese Garden
in Seattle, his first and second place awards in recent Minority Art
Competitions of the Seattle Urban League, hung at the Washington State
Convention Center, his qualification by Jerome Silbergeld, UW professor of
Contemporary Chinese Art, as "...one of the two or three most talented..."
Chinese artists ever to visit the US and his duties as Artist in Residence
at the recent "Inside-Out" exhibition of contemporary Chinese art held
jointly at the UW's Henry Gallery and the Tacoma Art Museum, qualify Mr. Gao
as an important Chinese-American artist.
Upon closer inspection, his multi-media reperatoire, including
realistic, Literati and folk-style paintings in oil and Chinese Ink, his
wood carvings and stone sculpture, his monumental steel sculpture in plazas
of Chinese cities, his Image Seal Cuttings (small stone-cut linited edition
prints with artist-inscribed text) and other hybrid creations suggest a
talent of Genius proportions. Mr. Gao is acting as a Calligraphy instructor
in the current SAM exhibition of ancient art from Sichuan Provence and has
participated in recent showings of contemporary Chinese art at Western
Washington University and Central Washington University.
The themes in Mr. Gao's widely-varied works are many. Some works speak
to traditional Chinese folk themes, as in a recent soap-stone sculpture
featuring a Chinese Mountain Goat, whereas others, like his
Abstract-Expressionist-like Literati style Chinese ink paintings combine
Buddhist and Christian ideas to express a reverence for nature as part of an
ongoing spiritual quest. Other works, such as a group of new oils featuring
female nudes in dream-like settings, combine ideas from folk, religion and
even contemporary art history to generate a compelling hybrid form.
Long Gao
"On Wings of Song"
acrylic on canvas
30"x40"
Long Gao
"Dreamland"
image seal cutting
2 1/8" x2"
More examples by Long Gao
