Chinese born, California based artist Vincent Xeus paints his portraits with a sensitive treatment of light and shading to an almost haunting effect. Though his work shares elements of 17th-century Dutch masters and contemporaries like Gerhard Richter, Odd Nerdrum, Francis Bacon, and Antonio López Garcia, Xeus has created an entirely new approach. Previously featured on our blog, he has said that his intent is to reveal that which is beneath what we think we see. This involves smudging the paint until the subject’s face is hardly recognizable or appears blurry and more impressionistic. His latest body of work, “Hue is Full / A Thousand Faces”, which opened Friday at Gallery 1261 in Colorado, takes his unconventional style to a new level where he wipes and scrapes away at his subjects. Many pieces out of his series of 30 new paintings, such has his portrait of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, also reflect the artist’s passionate interest in history, in which his manner of painting livens up historical images with luminous colors and emotional intensity. Take a look at more images from the exhibition below, on view through January 16th, 2016.
