POST #10

Artist= Zhang Hongtu

Pingling, China, born 1943

"A walking man" 1984

Acrylic on canvas

On December 9th, for the final blog post I visited Queens Museum. I picked this work of art "A walking man"(1984) by Chinese artist name Zhang Hongtun. I found this work of art very unique because of the color that he used because it's neither primary nor secondary. The medium of this work of art is acrylic paint and canvas. Since, it is acrylic on canvas it lies in 2d category. It is very hard to see what is in the painting due to the very dark colors. Hongtun has used so thick layers of paint, so the texture of painting is not a plane as most 2D work of arts has. In the far background, there is a tree, in the left middle ground, there is fish taking out his the head from the water and looking at the back of the man, and in the foreground there a man walking, facing in front. He tried to capture the very dark and depressing feeling in this painting. This is a representational work of art to me because, he tried to depict himself in the painting. And according to the content, the painter being from China felt very weird from all the cultural shock and found himself in a very weird environment when he came to America and was an inspiration for him to paint this particular piece. As the topic suggests walking man and fish he must have felt as if he was the only human and couldn't really communicate with others or feel comfortable speaking, even when they are, He used only cold and thick layers of dark colors hinting that it was very hard, lonely, having a hard time blending in the society and sad being in this sort of environment away from his home, friends and family. Finally, I guess he made this work of art, to convey his feelings and emotion while living in a different place and also it is kinda related to me. therefore, I chose this work.

After taking this class visiting the Queens museum was very interesting and knowledgeable to me because due to this class I started looking at artwork in a different way, for example, what is the artist trying to convey or appeal a message, feeling and emotion to us. Most importantly, I learned that art is life because we are surrounded by art and it is everywhere.