Ink Painting & Chinese Calligraphy

AWARDS AND HONORS
1964 First Place in Watercolor, First Open Art Competition, Chatham Gallery, Hong Kong 1982 Audrey Lyle Memorial Award, The Greater Reston Art Center, Reston, Virginia

1987 Invited Artist, Hsiung Shih Biennial, Hsiung Shih Gallery, Taipei

2001 Distinguished Alumni Lecturer, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, on the 50th Anniversary of the college

2002 Visiting Artist, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

2007 Residence Artist, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

2011 Judge of Annual Exhibition, Sumi-e Society of America

Akemi Maegawa works with ceramics and mixed media and her work often responds to unique perception of western civilization because of her background strongly rooted in Japanese culture and history. Her works quite often look deceptively simple and ironically ordinary.  However, she focuses on the beauty or drama through exploring those mundane objects to search and define a meaning of life.

Maegawa is a Washington, DC based artist born, raised and worked in Japan. She holds MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art and BFA from the Corcoran Collage of Art and Design.

Watercolor

Watercolor instruction with David Daniels in Takoma Park, MD, 2008-present

Watercolor instruction with Leroy Lawson at Maryland College of Art and Design and Montgomery College (Takoma Park), 2007-08

Teacher, Montgomery County Public Schools, 1988-2006

Self-employed artist and printmaker, 1984-88

Studio Arts at Montgomery College, 1981-88

Adjunct Lecturer, Department of History, Herbert H. Lehman College,

          City University of New York, 1974-78

Instructor, European Division, University of Maryland, 1972-73

Chinese Painting & Chinese Calligraphy

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Bertrand Mao has studied and practiced Chinese calligraphy and painting for over sixty years. His work consists of the traditional Chinese art forms of Shan-Shui painting, Chinese calligraphy, and the Four Gentlemen of Chinese brush painting – the plum blossom, chrysanthemum, bamboo, and orchid.  Shan-Shui, more commonly understood in the western world as Chinese Landscape painting, is the highest form of Chinese painting. The literal translation of Shan-Shui is "Mountain and Water”.

Western Traditions with the Black Ink Brushwork of Traditional Chinese Paintings

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Freda Lee-McCann is a Chinese-American artist whose work focuses on merging Western traditions with the black ink brushwork of traditional Chinese paintings.

Studied Chinese painting with C.P. Huang in 1955 and C.B. King in Taipei, Taiwan till 1960. Minored in Art at the University of Maryland. Studying Chinese Painting with C.C. Wang in New York City from 1981-2003.  Taken workshops with Katherine Liu, Steve Cushner, Skip Lawrence, Joe Mayer, Diana Marta, etc.

Calligraphy & Seal Engraving

John Shun-Chieh Wang was born into a scholarly family in Taiwan in 1947. His father, Wang Jing-yang (1905-1959), a master calligrapher and painter, began teaching him calligraphy at the age of six and began training in Chinese seal carving at twenty-one. In 1980 Wang settled in the Washington D.C. area where he is recognized as a master calligrapher and seal carver.

Wang’s work, deeply rooted in tradition and rich with personal interpretation, has garnered accolades in exhibitions in Taiwan, China, Japan, France, Italy, South Korea, Thailand and throughout the US. His works are also collected by museums, arts institutions and private collectors worldwide.

Born in Sichuan in 1969, Shuai Quanxuan came to Virginia from Chengdu, Sichuan, China in 2018. He held a solo painting exhibition at Dwell Fine Art & Craft, The Plains, VA, 2019. He obtained a solo painting exhibition schedule at Athenaeum, Alexandria, VA, 2020 and will be rescheduled to a future day after the pandemic. 

"I want my paintings to be full of sunshine and vitality. When my viewer is going through a hard time, I wish for my paintings to comfort and console them. Therefore I keep my paintings quiet and peaceful, and to be devoid of all fear and anxiety."

I create artwork to foster joy, hope, meaningful connections and conversations. Inspired by Chinese yin-yang philosophy, calligraphy, and woodblock prints, as well as elements of my native folk art such as embroidery and textiles, I use lines and colors, symbols and metaphors, forms and patterns in my art, integrating techniques such as carving, paper cutting, dripping, taping with mixed media including some unconventional materials to explore the complex nature of human existence and the resilient human spirits in this historically challenging world.

Yoshiko Ratliff is a painter and an award-winning ceramicist. She was born and raised in Japan.  She lives in Falls Church, Virginia and paints at her studio 203 at Torpedo Factory Art Center, Alexandria, Virginia.  She also creates elegant porcelain Crystalline glazed ceramic pieces at her home studio.

She has been exhibiting her work at Torpedo Factory Art Center, its satellite gallery at Mosaic District, Fairfax, VA., 3 times at Creative Crafts Council Biennial Exhibition, the Mansion at the Strathmore, Glenview Mansion, Rockville, MD and other galleries nationwide as well. Her work is found in private and corporate collections in the US, Japan and Brazil. She has received many awards, and has been featured in publications and radio interviews. 

After rooted in tradition for several decades, I started to search for a way to let the ancient calligraphic art breathe with contemporary air.

I am not willing to follow the roads trod by predecessors, whether those roads are correct or not.

I try to use multi-layer instead of single-layer, to use dense compositions instead of uniform layouts, to use repetitive and stacking, and even to introduce colors and other new ways to create calligraphy to induce resonance from the viewers, just like abstract art.