Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is very pleased to announce that Calvin Lai has been selected as one of the four winning artists of the gallery’s recent 20th “Solo Art Series” Art Competition. Calvin will now have a month-long solo art exhibition and he will be featured on the gallery’s front page, on the Gallery’s YouTube Channel, as well as in the “Solo Art Series” archive.
Calvin is an award-winning artist based in California, USA. He will now be promoted by the gallery with an extensive public relations campaign.
For this solo exhibition, the gallery will distribute, promote and circulate press releases to over 550+ major News Outlets, including Premium FOX, CBS, and NBC Affiliated Sites, with guaranteed inclusion on Google News & Bing News. The Gallery will also provide social media distribution through LST gallery’s broad social media network.
In addition, as part of his award package, Calvin will now be featured as a Light Space & Time – Artwork Archive promoted artist.
Calvin’s art will also be featured on the gallery’s YouTube Channel and with an event postcard.
The “Solo Art Series” is a series of monthly solo art exhibitions for established artists who have a body of work to present to the public. Artist participants were asked to submit the following 3 components for the “Solo Art Series” competition: 1. Their art. 2. Their artist biography. 3. Their artist statement. These elements were evaluated and judged, which resulted in the selection of the artists who will be featured in individual month-long solo art exhibitions. This was the 20th “Solo Art Series” Art Competition that the gallery has conducted.
Below is Calvin’s Artist Biography, his Artist Statement, along with 18 of her images. We hope that you will take the time to read Calvin’s information and to take a look at her artwork.
Artist Biography
Calvin Lai's art is a mixture of medicine, meditation, and personal growth. He found early on that drawing was something he loved, and to make a picture appear lifelike became his goal. Through constantly drawing, his work began to breath, and Calvin's fascination with value and perspective led him to become a student of realism. Eventually he moved from where he grew up in Los Angeles to San Francisco. There he studied drawing and printmaking at San Francisco State University. In 2008, he enrolled in the Academy of Art for illustration, but began painting instead. He found that he preferred the fine arts over commercial illustration, and now works as a full time oil painter.
Since then, working from his studio, he has continued to develop and refine his oil painting skills. Lai’s work has been shown nationally in galleries, group exhibitions and juried shows. He has executed a large number of portrait commissions over the past several years, and his paintings have appeared in national and international publications. Throughout his career, Calvin Lai has expanded his focus from figurative and portraiture to encompass a variety of subjects such as still life to the San Francisco cityscape. Now he has no borders to what he chooses to paint, and he is driven to capture everything around him through his paints, brushes, and determination.
Artist Statement
I collect moments. If you look through my collection you'll see paintings of people I've met, places I've been, and things I've seen. Because of my background in classical realism, it is important for me to paint these moments realistically. But solely painting realism feels incomplete, and I find that it can become a bit too academic. It's not only about the visual recreation that is my intention in oil painting. I want to make my audience feel they are walking down a rainy street, climbing up a sun drenched hill, or sitting in front of a beautiful figure. I want a viewer to feel the moments I collect.
In my work, I find myself breaking free from traditional ways of painting and incorporating much more expressive means. I place highly developed detail next to looser, almost abstract, areas. I'm fascinated with how to combine near photographic rendering alongside the roughness of the palette knife, or the randomness of a loaded brush. This combination of realism and Impressionism techniques creates a natural tension in my paintings, as well as directs where I want the eye to travel. Even my choice of composition and subject matter are influenced by this part of me. I find that I create compositions outside of conventional rules and gravitate towards subjects that do not necessarily follow a standard of beauty. There is a bit of provocation in this, as I play off of the traditional ways art should be, but there is also an invitation to see what else beauty entails.
Calvin’s website is www.calvinlaiart.com.
