Tibetan Suite Series - Melancholy of the Himalayas

Liu Kuo-sung first visited Tibet in the 1980s. During the summer of 2000, after lecturing in Tibet, he embarked on a journey to reach Everest Base Camp that brought about the breakthrough in his depiction of snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas. After several days’ journey, Liu arrived at where the spectacular magic of the mountains revealed itself: as sunlight shone through the peaks shrouded by clouds, majestic mountains shifted in and out of visibility that greatly enraptured the artist. Upon his return, Liu Kuo-sung began to create the Tibetan Suite series. Liu combines technical mastery and an experimental use of materials. The creative process involves the peeling strands of fibre from a specially-made textured paper to outline the mountains in white. Through repeated painting, creasing and peeling of both sides of the paper, Liu creates atmospheric ‘portraits’ of snowy mountains, their topography shown through crisscrossing white lines set against the dark, expansive backdrop of a Tibetan sky.