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Artist Leigh Wen

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LOUDONVILLE — Artist Leigh Wen delves into the natural — rugged snow-capped mountains, raging infernos and swirling winds. Yet she is most at home in the water — both raging and calm, icy and inviting. She is submerged in the element. And her massive canvases, as well as her small square porcelain reliefs, convey the expanse and fickleness of oceans, rivers and streams.

Her renderings of water are currently on show at the Beacon Institute through July 8. And on June 13, her waves will be illuminated in the windows of the Albany Center Gallery.

Both shows are intended to honor the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the waterway now known as the Hudson River. And both demonstrate Wen’s mastery of her technique — layers of carefully shaded color that are shaped into a vision of liquid by lines of exposed canvas. These streaks, hundreds of them, are scraped into the paint with a stylus. And they create the illusion of vibrating waves.

Standing in the gallery at the Beacon Institute in Beacon, a visitor commented on how he could stare at her paintings for hours. He also said he could dive into her images, they look so real.

Wen would be pleased as she strives to capture water’s elusive qualities as well as its depth and perspective. She admits this obsession with water rests in its mysterious duality. She thinks of it as both an obstacle and a connector between people. She also is drawn to water’s soothing and meditative powers.

“But water,” she said, “it can really destroy a lot of things. It’s very powerful. It can generate power. It can grow plants. We live on water. It can put out a fire.”

All these traits are visible at the Institute. Her largest canvas, 72-by-144 inches, is “Water 203.” In the foreground, the water is dark, forboding and rolling. As her subject glides to the background, the waters grow lighter, calmer, mistier and more ethereal. “Ponte Vecchio,” another large oil, shimmers in purples, then oranges, reds and yellows. It is a reflection of a promising sunrise or a world set ablaze.

At the Center Gallery, her giant watery landscape will glisten day and night. Overlaid with a fishnet of fiber optic lighting and lighted from behind, it will glow.

“I’ve never done this before. I think it will work,” she said while standing in front of her canvas at the large studio attached to her home in Loudonville.

Wen said her interest in depicting the natural world grew out of her upbringing in Taiwan. As a Taoist, she said, “Our belief is in nature. We go by the nature force.” And while water makes up the largest body of her art, her reverence for nature has been expressed in paintings that capture fire, earth and air.

Fire, she admits, is her favorite. However, since Sept. 11, she finds that galleries are not interested in showing, nor are patrons willing to buy, her violent blazes.

“I love making fire paintings because they are much freer form,” said Wen. “Water has perspective, movement, light and color. Fire is fire. Air is fun too. It’s not horizontal composition.”

Clay sculptures

Yet water, along with earth, has become her forte. She combines these in her relief clay sculptures. Smooth waterscapes are interrupted by jutting, rocklike formations. These porcelain pieces inspired Taiwanese sculpture Chen-Long Lin to invite Wen to collaborate with him on what he called “earth and sea” creations. Her bodies of water collide with Lin’s craggy shapes on the same block of clay.

“We had to negotiate how much space we got. I would say I wanted more of that corner,” she said with a laugh. “I liked it. We learned from each other.”

Wen said her work in clay reflects her personal and cultural history. In her hometown of Yingko, porcelain was king.

“Everyone created ceramics ­— tiles, toilets, sinks, mosaics, vases, cups, plates, fish bowls. It’s very colorful. They have a National Ceramics Museum. They have an international market and it’s a tourist attraction. Ceramics, there was not much mystery to me. At three years old, I’m already in clay.”

She disappointed her parents, who wanted her to be a doctor or lawyer, by pursuing art as her career. She further turned away from the norm by studying Chinese brush painting and stone carving. Most Chinese art students were absorbed in learning western arts.

“Chinese art was the worst because you can’t make much money. Always I want to do something different. All my friends studied western art. Chinese art is an unpopular category. It was tough.”

Because she wanted to be a professor of art, she needed a master’s degree. There were no universities in China offering that course of study, and so she had to study abroad. She enrolled in Washington State University, where she earned bachelor’s degree in fine art in 1984 and then a master’s degree in fine arts at the University at Albany in 1994. Though she succeed academically, she felt, as a traditional artist, she did not gel with fellow students.

“It was a time of conceptual art,” said Wen. “In the early 1980s, we just got out of Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism. What should I do?”

Seeking direction

She didn’t know. For a few years, she tried to tinker with painting and sculpture. But, she said, art at the university level discouraged cross-fertilization between departments.

“People say painters are painters, sculptors are sculptors. I’d like to expand the boundaries,” she said. “Art, to me, is invention. It’s problem-solving and experimenting. I couldn’t just paint with brush. It was never my intention.”

She had a breakthrough after graduating from UAlbany. She decided to combine print making, calligraphy and etching. She created a small etching, carving in her rhythmic, energetic calligraphy lines. From there, she created a small oil painting using the same technique. And then she created a 50-foot mural in oil, doing the same thing — layering on thick slabs of paint that she skimmed off, one thin line at a time.

“It was heaven. It was sentimental, romantic. It was Zen. It clicked for me.”

She has never looked back.

In creating her vistas, she travels the world photographing water, mountains, clouds and fire storms. Under the auspices of the U.S. Embassies, she has travels as a teacher. She has worked in Barbados and recently she returned from Botswana. In Africa, she photographed the Chobe River, which she will re-create on canvas. As she looked at the water she captured on camera, she lamented that only nature could create these scenes. If art is inadequate, she makes up for it with scale and detail.

“I like large,” said Wen. “Small painting is hard, very hard to create detail.”

And in that detail, one senses nature’s rhythm.

“It’s not accidental. I work in a very scientific way. It’s a lot of controlling chaos to find simplicity and harmony.”

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