Li Wang

In the modern society where manual labor is gradually being replaced by machine labor, I started to wonder how much of the work produced by creative mind and hands of the artists and craft workers might be given its way to computers and robots in the future. Soon I embarked on a journey of identifying whose these artists are and the type of art or craft work they do as a hobby or for a living.



During this process, I reached out to many artists through art associations and visited them in their home studio. I watched them creating beautiful work or listened to them introducing stages of their work with demonstrations. I took hundreds of photographs so that I could capture the fleeting moments at multiple timepoints. As I closely observed their creative process, their faces and hands captured my attention throughout and have become the focal points in my thesis series.

When I went back to the studio, I selected a few photos that have the best designs. Then I would start a final design for the painting that would combine multiple elements from different photos. But I selected one photo that has the best position and gesture of the subject / figure. Alla prima, direct painting method was used to finish the thesis series.

What I am hoping to achieve as a goal of painting these subjects is to engage the viewers appreciating the manual labor of these artists or craft workers and their creative process.