Vena Gu

 Vena Gu - An Alternative Still Life  8/11 -25, 2018

Vena's new series  features a series of paintings of books, picture albums, and everyday objects. These vintage books and picture albums render beautiful and poetic still lifes on the canvas: some books are closed and piled together, while others are opened, showing the illustrations and texts of the books. Subtle and harmonious colors and a hint of delicate atmosphere unites objects of similar yet different shapes. Taken as an entirety, they appear as both spatial objects and temporal media. The images in the picture albums illustrate mostly natural objects, captured via either photography or painting. They are like thin slices of time, not only reflecting the moment that the original picture depicts but also connecting the viewer to the moments before and after. A part leads to the envisioning of the whole, and the present leads to the imagination of the absent. This represents a world beyond the one we live in; a remote world. The artist treats the books as an embodiment of nature, memory, and experience, transcending time, space, and cultures. The natural objects, initially depicted as images in the picture albums and books, are reinterpreted and represented as paintings by the artist. Essentially, these paintings become representations of representations, a particularly delicate way of remembrance.  please click here for more 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        By Su Jie Hao

In 2008, Vena Gu graduated from V. Surikov Moscow State Academy Art Institute, with Master of Arts.

Vena Gu lives on the campus of Rode Island School of Design, where her husband is studying photography. Her series of " Neighbors" caught my eye, they are sensitive, sweet,  vivid depictions of  her world. Something about it touches me. It's her sense,  her sweetness, her sensibility , her delicacy in  the painting.  You see  little houses,  little streets, little people walking their dogs or chatting, a little coffee shop; a little car , ......you have a New England feeling, here are typical New England houses; the New England sky, grey and  moody; the New England weather, snow or shine,  you feel  those scenes  aren't  from  her neighborhood, but  from yours,  those people are your neighbors.  Her warm and peaceful ,  sometimes sad  feelings towards the life that will  move you.

Artist Statement

Born in the 1980s, I have many fond memories of growing up in Beijing, many of which eventually faded as China underwent rapid urbanization in the past three decades. After moving to Rhode Island, I grow increasingly interested in the urban landscape and street scenes of this New England region. This series of watercolor paintings depicts some street scenes of the New England region in the northeastern United States. I apply the method of portrait painting to portray these multicolored and variously shaped houses, as well as the people on the street and their everyday activities. I try to give these mundane subjects a sense of beauty and poetic quality, through which I reconnect with my early memories and find some sort of comfort and consolation.

Neighbors Series , water colors on paper mounted on board , 12 x 12" , with frame 20.5 x 20.5"