Artist Wang Gongyi brings her paintings and prints to Eugene

The work of Chinese artist Wang Gongyi ranges from easily approachable to subtle and challenging, sometimes within the same print or painting. Wang, who has been well known in Eugene since she spent a month as artist in residence at the University of Oregon Museum of Art in 1999, can depict the obvious - such as a cheerful bird sitting on a branch - with the same deft approach she brings to more elusive and frankly spiritual motifs - for instance, a single black horizontal brush stroke across a white sheet of paper. She works both with brush and ink and with etching plates, producing graceful black and white images that range from scenes of nature to pure abstraction.

Lately she has rediscovered color, and an exhibit of her recent work at White Lotus Gallery, 767 Willamette St., is accented by several large, shimmering pastels.

Wang has been living in Portland for the past three years, working and teaching at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She enjoyed the mentorship of Gordon Gilkey until his death in 2000.

Wang was in Eugene last weekend for the opening reception of her show. A compact, energetic woman of 57, with graying black hair and cheerful demeanor, Wang came of age during the traumatic years of China's Cultural Revolution. Many of her high school and college years, which she had meant to spend in art school, were spent instead planting rice in revolutionary re-education camps designed to force educated and elite Chinese to get in touch with manual labor. Wang survived her re-education and went on to become a professor of art at the China National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou.

In 1986, she traveled to France and her world began to open up. She now exhibits her work regularly in Europe and the United States and Canada. Speaking largely through an interpreter - though she speaks Mandarin, French and a bit of Russian, her English is spotty - Wang explained that she had to leave her home country of China in order to see it better. "When you're in the middle of something, you can't see what's going on," she said.

Wang's work is influenced by her study of Buddhism, which began in earnest after the Chinese government massacre of protesters at Tianenmen Square in 1989. "Somehow, in my whole life, I have seen a lot of unfortunate events," she said. "Before I thought it had to do with politics. But I realize it's more about humanity. I couldn't understand how these young soldiers could shoot everyone in front of them. Now I understand that a lot of things that happen are not about the people involved."

Buddhism has also profoundly influenced her art. "Before I started studying Buddhism, when I did my paintings, I would look at something; I try to draw what I saw. That's all," she explained. "Now I realize it has to do with `vibes.' You have to feel from the thing you're trying to paint. It's a really big change. Art is easier for me now."

Also at the reception last weekend was Kathleen Vitale, a UO Museum of Art docent who has just completed a half-hour video about Wang's life and work. Vitale had met Wang when the artist was at the museum in 1999; the two women struck up an acquaintance in French, their only common language. Vitale, who had previously made a video about Northwest artist C.S. Price, was taken by both Wang's art and her personality. One day Wang simply began singing to her in Chinese and Russian.

"She has such an ability to be happy in the moment," Vitale says. "We don't often have people who just sing like that."

Nov. 17, 2002