Jeffrey Moose Gallery Exhibitions

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Long Gao

June 11th - September 4th, 2010
RECEPTION Thursday, June 24th 5:00-7:00 pm

Mr. Gao will show a variety of work including traditional Chinese scrolls and landscapes in ink, surrealist oils on canvas, a collection of wood carvings and a group of his well-known stone-cut prints or "Image Seal Cuttings". This special show, his first solo show in four years, will feature some very special works on paper which closely connect Mr. Gao to his home. Paper scrolls filled with images of vegetables and herbs and accompanied by text, in an ancient form of Chinese calligraphy, explain the life-extending powers of the items depicted in "Long, Long Life I & II". In "Realize with Awaken", in essence, a surrealist cartoon rendered in Chinese ink, a pair of enormous, Mickey Mouse-like gloved hands seems to play a gigantic violin as the sky parts with waves crashing and fires raging. On the horizon, a few fortune cookies seem to beg opening and, on the far right, a candle burns down to the end of its life, a not so subtle metaphor for imminent Armeggedon.

Mr. Gao is a multi-media talent with very few peers. This year he displayed a work similar to the cartoon described above in an important Taiwanese exhibition. In 2009, he completed an enormous steel sculpture for the City of Woodinvile representing Salmon migration. In 2008, the the city of Lynwood purchased three paintings for their public collection. In 2005, the City of Seattle selected a major surrealist oil by Mr. Gao, "A New World", for their portable collection.

He served as an Artist in Residence at the Tacoma Art Museum for the acclaimed "Inside Out" exhibition of contemporary Chinese art shown at the Tacoma Art Museum and the UW's Henry Gallery in 2000. Mr. Gao's talent is so broad, so refined that Jerome Silbergeld, Professor of Chinese Art History at the University of California, Berkely (and author of two of the five books published in English on 20th Century Chinese artists) declares that "...of the Chinese artists who have come to the U.S. in the last fifteen years, some of whom represent the highest level found in China, ... I would rank Gao's work among the best."

His reputation in China is legendary: he was the Vice Chairman of the Association of Artists under the Ministry of Radio Film and TV and Director of the Jiu-San Association of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Research in the Peoples Republic of China. Mr. Gao received widespread international recognition for his book of "Image Seal Cuttings", an art form based on the most ancient of Chinese art forms, Seal Cutting. This is a medium which marries visual art and literature; the thoughts of an artist are portrayed in both imagery and poetry. An image is carved in reverse into a stone and then printed, then a poem or line of text is added next to the picture. His "Seal Cuttings" are collected by the Beijing Library in China, the U.S. Library of Congress, the Seattle Public Library and many universities throughout the U.S..

Mr. Gao works in many media. His oil paintings, traditional Chinese landscape paintings and abstract sculpture in metals are all superb. His skill at carving wood is astounding. His carvings of faces, animals and abstractions are compelling 3D versions of the seal cuttings, but with the added vitality lent by the warmth of wood grain and the mark of the sculptor's tools. All of the artist's efforts include forms derived from traditional Chinese folk imagery, tools and even philosophical concepts.

Please refer questions to Jeffrey Moose, 206.467.6951 or jmoose@jeffreymoosegallery.com.