welcome to my little gallery

Anne Wu

Hi, I am Anne. I am a grade 12 student in Vancouver, and I came here from China two years ago. I make oil paintings with a palette knife, and I like work that feels soft but a little bit sad. This website is where I keep my favourite pieces together.

My work

Four pieces from my portfolio. Three are oil paintings, and one is a sculpture.

Abstract pastel oil painting with a soft glowing centre and a thick border of painted flowers around the edges. — Inner Resonance, oil and acrylic on canvas

Inner Resonance

Oil and acrylic on canvas

For this one I first painted a completely different picture. Then I scraped most of it away with my knife, and I built a new painting on top of the old one. I did it on purpose. I think understanding yourself works in a similar way, because sometimes you have to break a part of yourself before you can see who you really are. The middle is soft and pastel, like a light that comes from the inside. Around the edges I put flowers, for the growth that comes after you face the truth. Who are you? What do you want? Where are you going?

Square oil painting of a textured skull with many thin painted lines spreading out from it across a pale background. — Eternal Threads, oil on canvas

Eternal Threads

Oil on canvas

Eternal Threads started from a question that confused me. Our body change all the time, every single cell, so why do we still feel like the same person? In the centre I painted a skull, thick and rough, using a palette knife and a putty knife, and around it I drew many thin line that all come together, each line one memory, or one thought. I do not believe death is really the end. To me it feels more like a change, where your memories and who you were become part of something bigger. The strong light and dark show this balance. Life is short, but the threads keep going.

Tall blue and pastel oil painting with thick clustered shapes at the bottom and a faint pale face near the top. — Illusions of Value, oil, spray paint and turpentine on canvas

Illusions of Value

Oil, spray paint and turpentine on canvas

Illusions of Value is about the art world, and how unfair it can feel sometimes. In the front I painted a crowd of skulls with a thick palette knife. For me, they are all the people who really love art but nobody notice them, because there is just too much competition. Behind them, very faint, there is a woman. She is the lucky few at the top, famous and praised, but she stays far away from everyone below her. I used spray paint and turpentine to make her soft and hard to see. While I was painting it, I kept asking myself one thing. Is art really about passion, or is it only about money and status?

Tall pale sculpture made from a skeleton model covered in white artificial flowers, feathers and small skulls. — Evanescence, mixed media sculpture

Evanescence

Mixed media sculpture

This one is a sculpture. It is the only piece here that I did not paint. I built it on a tall skeleton model, around 1.65 metres high, and then I glued many feathers, white flowers and small skulls all over it with a hot glue gun. It is about death, and also about fate. When you are young, your future feels huge, like anything is possible. But when you look back from the very end, the path looks like it was only ever going one way. I kept everything white and pale on purpose, because I wanted death to feel calm instead of frightening. From far away the whole thing looks light, almost floating, and only when you come close you can see how heavy and packed it really is.

About me

My name is Anne Wu. I am seventeen, and I am in grade 12 at a high school in Vancouver. I moved here from China two years ago, and at the start I was very shy because of my English. Art was the way I could still say something. I mostly use oil paint and a palette knife, because I love thick texture that you can almost touch with your eyes. For my Capstone project I wanted to learn something totally new, so I taught myself a little bit of HTML and CSS and made this website by myself. It was harder than I expected, but now all my work lives in one place.

Say hello

If you want to talk about my art, or you just want to say hi, you can send me an email. I am always happy to meet people who like the same kind of quiet, strange work.

wuquanyun5@gmail.com

Vancouver, BC