Wayne Jiang Paintings

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From the March 2001 issue of Artweek

"Last year, a friend of mine took a series of photos of his acquaintances, having them choose which locales they wanted to be pictured in. He wanted these settings to convey something about the personalities of his subjects. One person chose his favorite piano bar, another her favorite beach, another his home. The painter Wayne Jiang undertakes a similar examination of the relationship between the figure and the environment in his portraits of friends and acquaintances. His dramatically cropped compositions contain carefully arranged elements specifically chosen to tell a story about the person in the picture. A girlfriend might be portrayed in front of a lake, the shimmering surface of the water forming a serene frame for her profile; a grandmother might be depicted in her home, attending to her lifelong task of performing the daily household chores; other female family members might be pictured in the kitchen, in the midst of spontaneous acts of culinary creation.

Jiang's latest exhibition at d.p. Fong Galleries includes a series of small portraits painted on wooden panels. The images function as snapshot-sized studies
of the people who play a significant role in the artist's life."

Berin Golonu

From the October 19-25, 2000 issue of Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper.

"Jiang, whose eloquent political portraits are as wonderfully crafted as they are passionately felt. Jiang's exactingly painted
panels display adventurous formats ranging from tiny, 2-inch-square miniatures--some as supple as Van Eyck's--to a compelling jungle 7 inches high and 3 feet wide. His omnivorous eye addresses a young blonde woman, black athletes and aging Asians tending verdant gardens. Jiang's close study of Wyeth is handsomely in evidence in a thoughtful study titled Breezeway.

The brilliant work of Wayne Jiang offers refreshingly unforced avenues to multicultural awareness"

Christina Waters

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