Inspired by the Chinese phrase 花团锦簇, Splendour explores prosperity and celebration through a dialogue between oil painting and silk, where layered materials create a sense of abundance that extends beyond a single surface.

Splendour

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Inspired by the Chinese phrase 花团锦簇, Splendour explores prosperity and celebration through a dialogue between oil painting and silk, where layered materials create a sense of abundance that extends beyond a single surface.
  • Inspired by the Chinese phrase 花团锦簇, Splendour explores prosperity and celebration through a dialogue between oil painting and silk, where layered materials create a sense of abundance that extends beyond a single surface.
  • Inspired by the Chinese phrase 花团锦簇, Splendour explores prosperity and celebration through a dialogue between oil painting and silk, where layered materials create a sense of abundance that extends beyond a single surface.
Splendour

Splendour

Splendour celebrates the richness and vitality of the peony through a dialogue between materials, traditions and ways of seeing. Rather than depicting abundance through the flowers alone, the painting allows it to unfold through layers of oil, silk, ink and mineral pigments. As the composition develops, the underlying painting gradually emerges through openings in the silk, creating a sense that the floral display can no longer be contained within a single surface. Inspired by the Chinese expression花团锦簇, the work explores prosperity, celebration and flourishing, not as static symbols, but as qualities that expand beyond their boundaries.
Story Behind the Painting

Splendour emerged from an exploration of how different painting traditions might exist within a single work without one overwhelming the other. The painting developed through an ongoing dialogue between oil on canvas and ink and pigments on silk. Rather than completing one image before beginning the next, both layers evolved together, each influencing the direction of the other.

As the silk was laid over the canvas, parts of the oil painting disappeared from view. This concealment became an opportunity rather than a limitation. By carefully creating openings within the silk, the underlying painting was allowed to re-emerge, not as a background, but as an active participant in the final composition. The process became one of discovery, where each decision revealed new relationships between opacity and transparency, concealment and revelation.

The title is drawn from the Chinese phrase 花团锦簇, an expression that evokes luxuriant flowers, prosperity and joyful abundance. Rather than illustrating this idea directly, the painting seeks to embody it through its construction. The flowers appear to extend beyond the boundaries of the silk, creating the impression that their vitality and celebration cannot be confined to a single painted surface.
Artistic Enquiry

Splendour asks what becomes possible when different visual languages are allowed to coexist rather than compete.

Instead of treating oil painting and Gongbi painting as separate traditions, the work explores how they can develop together, each retaining its own character while contributing to a unified whole. Through this layered dialogue, abundance is expressed not only through the subject of the peonies but through the painting process itself. The work suggests that richness can emerge through coexistence, where differences enhance rather than diminish one another.
Looking Deeper

The visual tension within Splendour is created through a continual interplay between what is revealed and what remains concealed. The translucent silk both obscures and enriches the oil painting beneath, inviting the viewer to move between the two layers rather than settling on one.

Although the work combines techniques rooted in different artistic traditions, it is not intended as a statement about East and West. Instead, the materials become collaborators within a single visual language. Their interaction reflects the meaning of the painting itself. Just as the Chinese phrase 花团锦簇 describes a flourishing so abundant that it feels almost overflowing, the composition allows colour, texture and form to extend beyond the apparent limits of the silk. The sense of celebration is created not only by the flowers, but by the way the painting continually reveals more of itself as it is explored.
Process & Materials

Splendour is a mixed media painting combining oil on canvas with ink, mineral pigments and oil on silk. Rather than treating these as separate stages, both layers were developed together, allowing the composition to evolve through continual interaction between the materials.

Once the silk was placed over the canvas, areas of the underlying oil painting disappeared from view. Carefully considered openings were then introduced into the silk, allowing parts of the oil layer to re-emerge and become integrated into the finished work. This process transformed concealment into revelation, creating visual depth while allowing each material to retain its own distinctive qualities. The resulting surface reflects an ongoing dialogue between transparency and opacity, delicacy and texture.
Artwork Details

Year: 2016

Medium: Mixed media

Dimension: 59 cm (W) x 69 cm (H) x 4 cm (D) (Framed size)

Artwork Status: In Private Collection

When different materials, traditions and ways of seeing are allowed to exist together, can they reveal a richness that neither could achieve alone?

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