The opening ceremony of our art exhibition takes viewers on a journey where they can comfortably revel in the pigments of everyday life

On July 10th, Glow Community Center held the grand opening ceremony of Pigments of Life, an art exhibition featuring works from four local artists as well as pieces by Chinese youth. The theme of the event centers around diversity within the arts, which is exemplified by spotlighting underrepresented artists of all ages, unique mediums, and various subjects. Xiangdong Shi, an artist who is known for designing pieces in public places, is no stranger to experimenting with different mediums like sculptures, murals, and even stamps. However, his work displayed on the glass panels of the GCC office shows just how far his creativity can take him. Translucent rectangles fill the panels, with each rectangle displaying people made entirely of household items. He uses candy wrappers, plastic bag clippings, dried seaweed, and more to create distinct images that tell a story from head to toe.

Sheng Peifang has a passion for Chinese watercolor and calligraphy and has participated in several art exhibitions since coming to North America. She shows off her talent and love for nature in her pieces submitted, which greets viewers when they walk in and out of the community center. Assorted arrangements of leaves and flowers are the focal point of her pictures, filling viewers with a relaxing sense of serenity to start their tour of the exhibition.

Sandy Yeh is an artist who has over 40 years of experience in the design industry, with her muses being the people that she loves. Viewers can sense the love and affection she has for the subjects of her artworks as she depicts them and their surroundings in great detail. Her pieces line the walls of the community center, most of them with a common theme of showing off her two daughters, Jodi and Robin Yeh. Since talent runs in the family, her daughters’ artwork are also featured in the exhibition.

Lichan Ying has a background in architecture and is an artist with a love for traveling. These two elements combine naturally in her pieces, which center around different landscapes taken from her own experiences. A key feature of her artwork is how she can easily manipulate lighting to make the scenery as realistic as possible, which can make viewers feel as if they are actually by the ocean or strolling through a park.

Inside the ballroom, Xiangdong Shi’s students have their pieces hung along the walls, reflecting both their youthful creativity and their talent. The subjects vary from animals to landscapes to people, some being drawn in a more realistic way while others choose to stylize their work more. Even the mediums of the artworks are not all the same. Some students choose to use markers and pencil, but others opt out of traditional drawing and take photographs instead.

Overall, the art exhibition invokes a feeling of nostalgia and wanderlust for viewers. They are greeted by familiar depictions of people that they may see in their everyday lives through the mismatched creations of Xiangdong Shi as well as decorative foliage by Sheng Peifang that one feel as if they are walking through a garden. The hallway is lined up with artwork from both Sandy Yeh and Lichan Ying, which simultaneously fills viewers with a sense of longing for people that they care about as well as an urge to submit to wanderlust and explore a quiet neighborhood or beach. When they enter the ballroom, these feelings are amplified as they are faced with various pieces made by the students of Xiangdong Shi. Viewers are hit with a wave of nostalgia as they reminisce on how their lives were when they were the same age as the young artists and they are able to lose themselves in the artists’ subject matters of landscapes and living things. The swirl of emotions that the exhibition brings out in viewers truly reflects the dynamic pigments of life.