The struggle to perfection – the paintings by Lo Chan Peng

Pan An-Yi, Director of Graduate Stdies, The department of the History of Art & Visual Studies, Cornell University

Historic Figures provide concrete clarification to A Brief History of Time and showcase the artist’s perspective and philosophical approaches to the history of humanity. The historical personae he has selected narrate the progress from “godliness” to the “Theory of Evolution” followed by “Anthropocentrism” and “Eurocentrism” before the expansion of Imperialism and Capitalism which then led to Colonialism and eventually the rise of “Socialism”. The “Nazism” of World War II in Europe and “Japanese Imperialism” caused the unprecedented disaster. Skrik from the Portraiture collection shows Lo’s concerns over the working class whom reiterated their mindless tasks in order to survive: “I think I now have a better understanding of this world and have realised how helpless I am in this vast universe.”

Lo tactfully chooses to paint former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American president Abraham Lincoln as a contrast and comparison. Churchill fought against the invasion of Nazism, even though he succeeded with the help of allies, the rise of Neo-Nazism and extreme right-wing supporters in recent years are slowly gaining advocates in Europe. The current president of the United States Donald Trump sees himself as a pioneer like Lincoln, yet his deep-rooted racism has encouraged the believers of extreme right-wing philosophy and white supremacy. Despite his defeat in the recent presidential election, the issues regarding extreme right-wing supporters in Europe and America would remain a challenging one. Both Churchill and Lincoln reflect on the bight and the good of humanity, and they are praised for their reminding us of the dark side of humanity.

Through Portraiture, Lo explores the struggles men encounter on their path to the godliness. The female sitter and plants stand for the friction between temptation and the sacred, which then lead to the nuanced relationship between “consciousness” and “the ability to define good and evil”, meaning the connection between the “mortal” and the “saintly” .

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超可愛

Bill Traylor was born into slavery in 1854 (according to other sources in 1856). The son of Sally and Bill Calloway - both slaves - grew up in Alabama, on the plantation of the white cotton grower George Hartwell Traylor where he later worked as an emancipated sharecropper.
He was in his mid eighties when the plantation he had spent all his life on was sold and he was in his mid eighties, when he one day, picked up a stub of pencil and a scrap of cardboard from the street and started drawing.
Bill Traylor started drawing in 1939, had his first public exhibition in 1940 and produced about 1.500 pieces of art from 1939 to 1942. He died in 1945

"Racism and poverty have been the obvious obstacles to Traylor's appreciation, but more recently it has been the myth of the Outsider Artist, a kind of cultural ghettoization of the so-called untrained, poorly connected, marginalized savant, that accounts for not just Traylor's relative obscurity, but for the obscurity of thousands of artists like him throughout the U.S. alone. Eurocentrism--the Western cultural bias that elevates the self-proclaimed refinement of the European art-historical legacy above the productions of the myriad non-Western legacies of the world--is an even more entrenched and insidious dynamic keeping Traylor from achieving the truly international renown he is due." - G. Roger Denson .

Bill Traylor was born into slavery in 1854 (according to other sources in 1856). The son of Sally and Bill Calloway - both slaves - grew up in Alabama, on the plantation of the white cotton grower George Hartwell Traylor where he later worked as an emancipated sharecropper.
He was in his mid eighties when the plantation he had spent all his life on was sold and he was in his mid eighties, when he one day, picked up a stub of pencil and a scrap of cardboard from the street and started drawing.
Bill Traylor started drawing in 1939, had his first public exhibition in 1940 and produced about 1.500 pieces of art from 1939 to 1942. He died in 1945

"Racism and poverty have been the obvious obstacles to Traylor's appreciation, but more recently it has been the myth of the Outsider Artist, a kind of cultural ghettoization of the so-called untrained, poorly connected, marginalized savant, that accounts for not just Traylor's relative obscurity, but for the obscurity of thousands of artists like him throughout the U.S. alone. Eurocentrism--the Western cultural bias that elevates the self-proclaimed refinement of the European art-historical legacy above the productions of the myriad non-Western legacies of the world--is an even more entrenched and insidious dynamic keeping Traylor from achieving the truly international renown he is due." - G. Roger Denson .