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Canberra Today 15°/17° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

City landscapes of the mind

Queen Victoria Building by Ji Chen
“Sydney 2012” is artist Ji Chen’s homage to a great city in his adopted homeland.

Though Melbourne-based, Chen has created an imposing collection of paintings of the rival harbour city, its coastline and some of its landmarks, including the mighty Queen Victoria Building near Town Hall.

Formerly a set designer for the Beijing Opera, Chen came to Australia in 1989, and is the product  of an exacting Chinese art education.  As well, he demonstrates  a talent for portraying “light and colour” in his large city and seascapes.

Over the decade, as Paintbox Fine Art in Braddon has exhibited Chen’s work, owners Steve and Anne Watson have noticed that his paintings have become “less about the specific place and more concerned with the emotional and physical response to an environment.”

His  paintings, they say, are “landscapes of the mind,” or in Chen’s own words, “picture + me = 1.”

“Sydney 2012” at Paintbox Fine Art, 32 Lonsdale Street, Braddon, 11am-5pm, Wednesday to Sunday until August 5.

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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