A Garfield Park resident and artist, Wu started painting in 2012. He was walking down the street when he saw a fellow neighbor, Sharon, had a sign up on her porch that offered lessons on color theory.
By day, Wu creates specialty floor covering and concrete underlayments that he describes as “walking on artwork.” Doing this since 1977, Wu has always wanted to keep fresh, learn, and improve.
“I wanted to learn color theory,” Wu said, “so I figured, how else better than by painting? I picked up the paintbrush and put down the toolbox.”
In regards to his paintings, Wu says he does a lot of “dilly dallying,” but fell in love with work from Georgia O’Keefe and Fra Bartolomeo.
“I fell in love with Georgia O’Keefe first. So I did a lot of that, very few of my own things, but mostly stolen art from the Old Masters,” Wu said. “That’s what kind of got me started and is pushing me along. After this show, it’s the end of the chapter. I’m going to be focusing primarily only on the old masters’ work and their techniques.”
Looking at Wu’s pieces in Guichelaar Gallery, you see the span of 12 years of work. While within this body of work you might not recognize an exact replica of an O’Keefe, Wu explains that “A lot of it has been self-taught. Therefore, the techniques were not correct and it was harder to get to the end product with similar looks. They had totally different techniques. But my work progressed until finally it evolved into some good stuff.”
For the future, Wu hopes to move closer to emulating the Old Masters.
“The Old Masters, they learned from each other,” Wu said. “They had apprenticeships. So the next generation should have been better than the previous. If you go to the museums, you’ll look at their work — it could take two to three years to complete a painting. Because you’ve got a bird’s eye, you’ve got Verdi, and then you add your colors and usually only glazes, building one upon another for deeper darker colors. And man, they had to grind their own paint!”
Through painting and making work, Wu enjoys his life. “It’s a hobby,” Wu said. “Anybody can do it. I was not particularly good at drawing. I’m not particularly good at color theory. Even now, I’m still learning. Like most hobbies, everything is a continual learning experience. And sometimes you get a hit, sometimes you get a homerun.”