A Look Into Huang Jie’s Work
By Rosalie

 “Life is like a dream, or even like a dream within a dream.” (Chinese proverb)

Like many Chinese artists born after 1980, Hang Jie’s work is influenced by oriental and occidental cultures. Combining that with her own special ideas and techniques, the artist succeeds in presenting us with a very energetic and refreshing series of paintings.

In Huang Jie’s paintings, women’s silhouettes often dissolve into bright, multi-coloured backgrounds, becoming one with them. The women become a sort of canvas within the canvas, losing their inherent three-dimensional quality to become a surface within each piece. The artist uses this human-shaped “canvas” to create a mysterious and fantastic world, recalling surrealists scenes such as those depicted in Dali’s and Tanguy’s work. Expressing her “mood and heart” more than any particular influences, Huang Jie’s paintings “root from her instinct as a woman”.

The delicate and gentle charm that emanates from Huang Jie’s works is strengthened by her recurrent use of curvy lines and volutes entangling the objects into one another, melting everything into a fluent but complex cohesion. On top of that, her use of acid and joyful colours increases the feminine atmosphere in her work.

Huang Jie uses watercolour in her own personal way, very different from typical watercolour paintings. To avoid the usual watercolour blooming effect, she adds very little water to her medium, making the paint less transparent and brightening the colours. This also makes it possible for her to work in a very detailed and meticulous manner. She succeeds in creating a puzzling effect by combining areas of flat colours applied uniformly with subtle and delicate colour shadings. Fascinated by dramatic colours and visual effects, the artist highlights the dynamic in her work by juxtaposing contrasting areas of colour.

In a subtle way, Huang Jie’s works are influenced by Chinese culture, with certain Chinese shadow-painting techniques and her use of decorative patterns. The artist’s works’ backgrounds are reminiscent of the delicate tradition of Chinese wallpaper, which unlike the mainly printed Western wallpaper, was mostly hand-painted. Huang Jie’s backgrounds, almost like wallpaper behind the human shapes in the foreground, can be linked to this century old Chinese traditional technique.
 
Viewers should not hesitate to take a closer look to Huang Jie’s paintings. The intertwined systems she creates pinpoint the artist’s belief that there is a very thin line between dreams or fantasy and reality. The shapes are “like images coming out of my soul, one after the other”. Only a meticulous look will give the observer the chance to appreciate Huang Jie’s work to the fullest as well as give her the keys to enter the artist’s enchanted world.