Dong Shaw-hwei start out studying impressionism, and frequently went to Europe for her craft, absorbing the way Western paintings displayed the interplay of color and light and shadow. Therefore, about before 2008, the artist's painting style was mainly based on the impressionist landscape, and the " Courtyard "series was also developed by the style of outside light painting. more

Most of the artworks in the “Courtyard” series started from a sketch then turned into a painting on the spot. These paintings capture her instant feeling at the time. Therefore, they convey a vivid atmosphere to the audience. Dong combined the changing of shadow and light from Impressionism with lyrical images in daily life. She also added the culture and brushwork of traditional Chinese painting to create a uniquely fresh and personal style for contemporary watercolor painting. more

About oil painting of monochrome scribe line
Simply speaking, the series originates from my fancy of fountain pen sketches. Also, I aim to facilitate the representation of oil-painting, and to create interest which is approximate to a manuscript's.
Dong Shaw-Hwei
Spring 2009, courtyard in Taipei. Creation Concept

The artist’s imitating the ancient painting style, though it carries “imitation” in its name, is actually a product of rebirth. The “Imitating Ancient Painting Style” series did not originate from the artist’s intentional innovation, but rather from her admiration and fondness of Chinese classical paintings. Especially the fine and meticulous plant paintings of the Song dynasty, with their aesthetic mood of quiet observation, has found a great deal of resonance from the artist. Just like Su Shi(1037-1101), who upon reading the “Zhuang-tze” remarked: “I had many thoughts, yet not the words to express them. Today I have read this book, which says what I could not.” In light of such experiences, painters tend to dwell on them, and occasionally, designs from Chinese painting and calligraphy are introduced into the image of their works. Over time, the ideas in painting that attempt to fully investigate matters like the people of the Song dynasty did are integrated into the creative work.more

A state of continuous creation proliferates a variety of styles.Basically, it is a successive sort of research which broadens the results of a certain aesthetic theme. In my present stage, the mode of expression for my continuous creation is to piece a series of paintings together, from two pieces to six pieces.

The purpose of piecing together my works is to exercise their capacity for different structure. I aim to develop my theme of the courtyard expressed through scroll and album formats as in Chinese painting. Any piece can be viewed individually, but piecing them together will form a more continuous and perhaps enticingly fresh structure. It is my hope to express a harmonious cadence and rhythm that exists naturally in my work.

Beholders may be inspired by the transitions of spatial and time relations in these series progressions. Also, the courtyard theme begets tranquility and solace that comes from it's natural forms.

Dong Shaw-Hwei
Spring 2010 at Taipei Municipal University of Education

I like line drawing. I begin with a single line, and the object leaps to the eyes. I like to record thousands of postures on paper. The scene is my creative start, and also part of my quiet observation process. Throughout the process, the object is becoming more real through existence in the heart and I don’t feel emptiness when I am drawing. Creation Concept

Dong Shaw-Hwei. (1962- )
Summer, September 2010 at Taipei Municipal University of Education

Still life has always been a favorite subject of mine, even though it has often been seen as standard and uncreative. I contemplate in silence before starting to depict the subject and thus creating an artwork. As such, still life can been seen as a byproduct of my contemplations. Contemplating on the still life is also contemplating on oneself, on a certain kind of existence, the existence of the objects, of the table, of the background, of the connection between the viewer and the viewed. They are independent of each other, yet related. In Oriental still life, the “still” refers to the person. Completing a still life is like having gone through a period of solitude and being filled with serenity. more

To some degree, abstract art can be called the most important breakthrough and representation of 20th century modern art. The meaning of the term “abstract” is in relation to the term “concrete”. There were already some elements of abstract styles in Western art tradition, such as “morphing”, a trait that appeared as early as the Baroque era in the 17th century with El Greco’s elongated human forms. But it took until the beginning of the 20th century for Picasso’s proto-Cubist piece “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907) to mark the beginning of Western art’s entry into a modern abstract style. Later, Kandinsky created the first pure abstract painting, plunging the various art circles into turbulent times and establishing the direction of modern art philosophy. Thus diversified abstract art styles became the most distinguishing feature of post-20th century art. more

Light and shadow, full of layers and texture. During the Summer day, the lights in the lush garden are very peculiar. The intense sunlight floods the garden and reflects off the blades of grass and the bamboo fence. The branches and leaves turn a deep dark from the light behind them and show no color, forming graceful, silhouette-like outlines. A gentle breeze starts to blow, and the shadows (ghosts) begin to move back and forth, like the chant of temple monks, the many layers all moving together. During the Summer of 2009, when the sun was shining hotly, I was sitting in the shade of the old garden drawing the big banana leaves and old loquat stems, recording the shadows before my eyes with an indigo so dark it resembled ink. For an instant, I couldn't tell what was solid and what was mere shadow, what was fake and what was real. more