Preserving the old ways

Alex Coolman

Up close, the details of Gao Xiao-hua’s painting “Portrait of an Yi Man”

are nothing but a blur of pigment. The forehead is a mahogany smear shot

through with clouds of boiling white.

But step back and the painting, part of OCC’s new “Chinese Realism” show,

snaps into vivid, surprising detail. Fine wrinkles materialize in the

brow above the man’s eyes. Moles and freckles pull into focus.

Above all, the painting gains an attitude. The expression of the Yi Man’s

face hardens into a somewhat frightening mixture of pride and contempt.

He looks like a subject not too happy to be sitting still.

In this exhibit of work from the last two decades, some of which is

fairly Western in character, Gao Xiao-hua’s portrait speaks

unapologetically of its Chinese provenance, and the effect is powerful.

The image captures a member of an impoverished minority group from

southwest China, said Dr. Janet Baker, curator of Asian art and director

of public programs for the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art and co-curator

of the OCC show.

“These are people that may or may not attend school, may or may not ever

receive health care, may or may not bathe from month to month or year to

year,” Baker said of the Yi (pronounced “ee”). “They’re people who are on

the fringes of society.”

In Chinese art of recent years, the people on the fringes are a major

concern, she said. In the face of modernization that threatens to destroy

many old customs and cultures, artists have been seeking out and striving

to document the rural groups whose old ways are still intact.

Many of the paintings in the show, a selection from the private

collection of Dr. Frank Ma that runs through April 13 in the college’s

Fine Arts Gallery, are testament to this effort. The canvases bring the

rural life of China vividly to life.

A few others are less literal. Ji Yong-gang has three paintings in the

show whose subjects seem allegorical. Solitary figures cross through

bodies of water in each picture, often surrounded by dense vegetation.

“It’s like a combination of realism and surrealism,” said Irini

Vallera-Rickerson, OCC’s gallery director and the co-curator of the

show.As is usually the case with OCC’s shows, the gallery itself is a

feast for the eyes. With its walls painted rich shades of orange and

yellow and its floor engagingly accented with stone and reeds to draw the

eye, the space is not so much a backdrop for the art as a participant in

what’s being displayed.

* WHAT: “Chinese Realism,” a show of contemporary Chinese paintings

* WHERE: OCC’s Fine Arts Gallery, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa

* WHEN: Through April 13. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday

through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday

* HOW MUCH: free

* PHONE: (714) 432-5039