International Artist – June-July 2019

(^44) http://www.InternationalArtist.com

TRUTH

in DETAIL

Chinese-American painter Z.S. Liang turns

to historical detail to bring to life his works

showing Native Americans

By Dan Corazzi

S

everal months ago I had the pleasure

of realizing every serious collector’s

dream when I had the opportunity to

“shadow” a great artist—in this case

Z.S. Liang—as he developed the idea

for his latest major painting, did the

necessary research, prepared an initial

drawing, refined subsequent drawings,

prepared a study, drew the final version

on the canvas, spent weeks painting the

composition and, finally, made minor

changes and or corrections before the

painting was deemed to be complete

and ready for framing.

Getting to know Z.S. over the past

several years, I very quickly learned that

the reasons why he has been so successful

in his portrayal of Native Americans,

with his paintings, are varied.

First and foremost, he is a naturally

very talented and skilled artist, which

goes back to the intense training that he

received as a young aspiring artist in his

native China. Secondly, he is extremely

passionate about Native American

culture and most importantly, he is a

stickler for detail and for making sure

that each of his compositions accurately

represent and depict every element in

his paintings—from the clothing worn

by his figures, to their weapons and or

the ceremonial objects and in the case

of his large historical paintings, to the

geographical setting for the story that

he is “telling” with the painting.

In order to achieve such a high level

of accuracy in his paintings, Z.S. has

become a student of the different

Native American cultures and he goes

to great lengths to ensure the accuracy

of all the elements in his compositions.

The subjects for each of his paintings

are carefully thought out and they

are meticulously researched before he

begins his first drawing.

And one of the many things that

I realized, from having the opportunity

to shadow Z.S., is that like all great

artists, he is never completely satisfied

with his own work and he also is his

own severest critic. Because of this, he is

constantly challenging himself by raising

the bar in order to improve the overall

quality of his work, by developing more

interesting ideas for his stories and by

being conscious about not creating

works that have a “sameness” to them.

Z.S. does this because he believes

that collectors of his work rightfully

deserve to own a painting that is not

only of the highest quality possible, but

also they deserve to own a “one-of-a-

kind” work of art that won’t be repeated

and that won’t be seen—in either a

larger or smaller size or in a similar

composition—in another show, another

gallery, another magazine or in another

collector’s home.

My actual shadowing of Z.S.,

over the period of time that he was

working on his major painting that

will be exhibited in June, at the Prix de