Fire Horse

180 x 119.5 cm, Oil on Canvas, 2026

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Fire Horse emerges with an embrace of passion, fearlessness, intensity, and an untameable spirit through the energy and symbolism of its astrology. Informed by my Chinese heritage, I define this figure subconsciously, working intuitively to capture the presence of its essence rather than a literal subject.

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I approach the canvas by pulling the form out from the background and allowing the form to surface through movement, colour, and gesture. I let my body carry each movement as I make each mark. I worked quickly and physically, letting the paint drip, blur, and resist control, mirroring the idea of something powerful that cannot be contained. This movement brought out an expressive and intensified relation of body to surface. Layers of saturated oranges and intense yellows with flashes of crimson red, fuchsia, and titanium white build a flaming combustion to form and diffuse within its own energy so the Horse both appears and disappears, never fixed, reflecting the Fire Horse’s transient, volatile nature.

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This way of art-making draws on the explorative freedom and immediacy of gestural brushwork and emotional intensity within the colours seen in artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, and Willem de Kooning, whose art practices dive into the intuition of allowing the medium to guide you, embracing  the physicality of the paint through its movement, colour, and texture. I also resonate with the atmospheric intensity of J. M. W. Turner, particularly in the way light and colour dissolve form into energy.

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This work is less about the representation of a horse and more about embodying   a force, something instinctual, spiritual and alive. The Fire Horse becomes a presence rather than a subject, existing in a state of continual transformation.