Galloping Across the Emerald Mountains

About this artwork

Galloping Across the Emerald Mountains presents a vividly coloured horse moving dynamically through a stylised mountainous landscape. The horse dominates the composition, painted in intense shades of pink and red, while the background is formed by repeated blue and green mountain shapes that recall the rhythm and structure of traditional Chinese landscape painting. Rather than pursuing realistic anatomy or perspective, the work transforms the horse into a decorative, almost symbolic figure. The animal is richly ornamented with geometric borders, floral motifs, circular patterns and detailed saddle decorations. These elements draw inspiration from Chinese folk art, traditional textiles, festive objects and ornamental imagery, but they are reorganised through a highly contemporary visual language. The exaggerated colour contrasts give the painting an energetic and playful quality, while the simplified forms create a sense of immediacy and movement. The horse appears to leap rather than simply walk across the landscape. Its elongated legs and dramatically raised tail strengthen the feeling of speed and freedom. Against the layered mountain forms, the bright pink body becomes almost luminous. The work combines traditional cultural references with expressive colour, decorative imagery and imaginative distortion, creating a landscape that feels both familiar and fantastical.

The inspiration for Galloping Across the Emerald Mountains comes from the symbolic relationship between the horse and the landscape in Chinese visual culture. In traditional imagery, the horse often represents strength, vitality, movement, freedom and ambition, while mountains can suggest stability, endurance, distance and the natural world. I wanted to bring these two symbolic elements together, but reinterpret them through a contemporary and personal visual language. Instead of depicting a realistic horse in a realistic landscape, I deliberately use exaggerated proportions, decorative patterns and highly saturated colours. The bright pink horse creates an immediate contrast with the deep blue and green mountains, separating the animal from natural reality and turning it into an emotional and symbolic presence. The decorative details are influenced by Chinese folk traditions, embroidery, festival imagery and traditional ornamental design. Rather than directly reproducing these sources, I transform them into a visual vocabulary that reflects memory, imagination and cultural identity. The repeated mountains create a rhythmic, almost theatrical space through which the horse appears to move freely. For me, this movement represents an attitude toward life: continuing forward despite uncertainty, travelling through changing landscapes while carrying traces of one’s cultural background. The painting is therefore not simply about a horse crossing mountains, but about energy, identity, freedom and the desire to move beyond familiar boundaries.