Kids don’t Know.
Paintings and Monotypes
The Swing
January 28 through February 20
Main Gallery
About the artist
Claire Feng is a painter. Born in China, she studied French literature before leaving China for Europe. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the National School of Visual Arts of La Cambre in Brussels, and her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the American University in Washington DC. She currently lives and works in Washington DC.
Her work has been the subject of solo shows in Washington DC and Baltimore, group shows at venues such as the Adam Lister Gallery in Fairfax, Virginia; the American University Museum in Washington, DC; the Washington Printmakers Gallery in Silver Spring, Maryland; and the 1212 Gallery in Richmond, Virginia. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and has received several awards, including the Mellon Grant and the 2nd Place in the Art Interview 14th International Online Artist Competition.
About the work
Kids don’t know is a series of paintings and monotypes based on images of children. Snapshots of children are usually meant to be innocent and happy. Claire either takes a series of photos as means of sketching, or chooses found images that relate to her in an emotional and aesthetic way. These fleeting moments give to her work a sense of incompleteness, dislocation, enigma, and ambiguity. Meanwhile, the direct and energized brushwork brings life, vibration and freshness to the canvas. Quietly, the painting looses the accidental quality of the original snapshot and gains an unexpected gravity.
In this body of work children are depicted in their leisure moments either in a posture of contemplation, or in an attitude of self-absorption, or immersed in an overwhelming environment hinting some potential threat. Claire’s paintings and monotypes create a secret poignancy that echoes the complexity of childhood life, with unspoken desires, fears, frustrations and daydreams. By questioning the presumed carefree joys of childhood, her work challenges common clichés and leaves the viewer in front of the tension between the familiar and the strange, the obvious and the latent, the apparent and the unknown.
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You are welcome to visit her website at: www.clairefeng.com
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Opening Reception Fourth Friday
January 28, 7-10 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Closing Artist Talk
February 20, 4 pm
Free and Open to the Public
The Backyard
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