Oi Yee Tai

Canadian Chinese brush artist Oi Yee Tai was born in Hong Kong, and immigrated to Toronto, Canada in the early 1980s. Before leaving Hong Kong, she learned Chinese brush painting from the late Master Lai Yuk who was a renowned artist trained by the great masters of Chinese painting, the late Lin Feng Mian and Pan Tian. Oi Yee flourishes on her own in Canada where she has been able to bring East and West together in perfect harmony in her fusion sumi-e. Oi Yee's brush strokes are deft and mature, yet the feel is innocent and playful. Her aim is to capture the essence and not the form. She sees beauty in simplicity and has developed her own spontaneous minimalist style. She loves to leave ample empty space in her Chinese ink wash paintings where the painted implies the unpainted, the tangible blends with the intangible. The "unpainted brushstroke" allows room for the viewer's own imagination, and also creates bonding between artist and viewer as what is not said is understood. This stems from Laozi and Zhuangzi's Taoist thinking of Wu Wei, action in nonaction.