[Opening / Closing]
Opening Reception for Freda Lee-McCann

About This Event

Freda Lee-McCann’s solo show at Studio Gallery is inspired by her visit to Zion National Park with an old friend. In “Zion Connected,” she explores the topography of the mountains in a modernized Chinese painting style, utilizing aspects of traditional characteristics and techniques while infusing them with her own modern aesthetic. The intense color palettes and the textures created by the artist's brushwork become complimentary to the delicate nature of traditional Chinese calligraphy, and fragile materials such as rice paper.

Unlike many Western paintings where the common perspective is a single viewpoint, these works embody the multiple viewpoints that are characteristic of traditional Chinese paintings and narratives of the journey. The show begins with large works that highlight strong brushwork created with traditional Chinese black ink and delicately muted colors on rice paper and watercolor paper. These more traditional pieces are followed by increasingly descriptives works in which the colors of the mountain range in Zion are intensified by textured layers of watercolors and acrylics. Additionally, the mixed media collages featured in this show link the two different bodies of work. These collages appeal to modern stylistic modes, while celebrating traditional Chinese themes of friendship and good times found in ancient Chinese poems and written in beautiful calligraphy.

Freda Lee-McCann studied Chinese traditional painting with painting master Huang Jun-bi in Taipei, and with the modern master and collector C.C. Wang in New York City for over 22 years. She has also studied non-Asian painting with Katherine Chang-Liu. She has exhibited widely and is in private collections both nationally and internationally. Recent solo shows and group shows in the Washington Metropolitan Area include those at Studio Gallery, Studio–A Gallery, Adah Rose Gallery, Howard County Arts Center, New York City, Beijing and Taipei.