Friday, July 01, 2022

Lu Schaper's Art: My Favourites

 
Location of Galerie LuS (photography © Hennie Schaper)
  
Of course I will also be using this blog to highlight the work of my wife: Lu Schaper (born in Shanghai as Yang Lu) is a professional artist, who went to the art academies of Shanghai and Beijing, and has exhibited in many countries in Asia and Europe. Since 2012 we have a gallery in Kampen (Galerie LuS) to share her art with the public on a permanent basis. In every posts under this label I will be grouping a dozen of her works around a central theme. Today's theme is "My personal favourites": a selection of her works that I like best, roughly in chronological order. All these works are oil on canvas.
 
 Yesterday
 
Let's start at the beginning as far as the two of us are concerned. This is actually the painting that drew me into her gallery May 1999 - and drew me back in a few minutes after leaving it when I decided to buy it. It does seem like yesterday (her choice for the name) - the start of a romance that has meanwhile lasted over 20 years already. It is hanging in our bed room.
 
 
Amsterdam Angel
 
In August 1999, I took my (then) girl friend - later my wife - to Europe to meet the family. For her it was the first trip outside Asia, and just as overwhelming as Asia was for me. When we came back to Singapore, this was one of the first paintings in which she used the inspiration of her first Europe experience.


La Cappuccina

This was the painting she was working on when I proposed to her (well, not at that exact moment), and we also used it on our wedding invitations early 2000. I have named this one La Cappuccina (the capped one), a play on cappuccino of course. Another painting that we will always keep and cherish.


Character
 
One of the last paintings my wife made before we moved from Singapore to France in the summer of 2001. It is a wonderful example of the strong colours that mark the beginning of her Shanghai Expressionism period, with some cubist overtones. I love how the figure is shown in the transition from chaos (left) to peace (right).
 
 
 
Dreamscape

One of my wife's best paintings also according to reactions we get. A wonderful example of her style, with all the trademarks: expressionist style, Asian theme, and featureless faces. It has a prominent fixed place in our gallery, and we chose it for the brochure we had printed in 2002 
 
 
 Close to the Edge
 
I love the clash of the cold tones and the sensual subject. It has been hanging in my workplace ("man cave") at home for many years already.
 
 
 
The Three Graces
 
This is the biggest painting I have seen my wife make. It is actually painted on a 3-panel canvas room divider (three times 40x180 cm). I love this graceful image, and so do many visitors of our gallery - where it is on permanent display.
 
 
Singing the Blues

Combining my passion for art with that of music.I love the setting, the colour scheme and her trademark lack of facial details. It is often on display in our gallery, but is currently hanging at home.
 
 
Whirling
 
One of the first works she painted after our arrival in our new home town of Kampen. I love the happy feeling in this one, expressed in the dancing couple's stance and the colours.


I've Got the Music in Me
 
This will always be special to me: the first artistic cooperation between my wife and me. This was originally a photograph (actually, a digital merger of five photographs) by myself. We printed it on canvas for display in our gallery, and then my wife decided that this would be ideal material for an experiment: she provided some touch-ups with oil paint. The result is quite effective.


Metropolis

This is a work my wife made a few years ago. The atmospheric image of a couple in the big city also gets lots of positive reactions whenever we display it in our gallery.
 
 
Selfie
 
Self portraits are not very common in my wife's repertoire, but here is one that she made a few years ago. And I love it. So do many others, given the comments we got when we put it in the window of our gallery. Since a few years we have given it a fixed place at home.
 
 
Copyright statement: all images copyright Lu Schaper (Yang Lu).