r/TorturedPoetsArtDept

Je Shen was born in Jiangxi, China and studied at Guangzhou Art School and the Beijing Fine Art Academy in China.

Je Shen is a contemporary Chinese artist whose work fuses traditional East Asian landscape painting with European Impressionism.

His paintings are a 'melting pot' of styles and influences, creating a medium of artistic expression that cuts across cultures.

Calming scenes of cities and nature, adorned by exuberant spring blossoms or colorful autumn leaves.

The artist uses thin acrylic paint for his backgrounds, while he thickly paints the flowers with oil, producing an elevated appearance. The result is an image with mesmerizing depth, not only in the texture of the canvas but in the landscape itself, as if inviting the viewer to step into this extraordinary world.

I love the interior worlds inhabited by the subjects in Liepke's paintings, as well as the subjects themselves. Whether it's lively social interactions, a moment of tender or sensual intimacy between a couple, or glimpses of introspection, boredom, loneliness, or discomfort in the faces of solitary figures in a crowd; Liepke evokes a range of human emotions, capturing his subjects at their rawest & most vulnerable.

The beauty of this particular painting (which is deeply significant to me) is that the story or meaning depends on each beholder. It's one which requires you to go beyond the surface of what's shown to reach your own understanding & interpretation of what's going on between the three figures.