Marin Museum of Contemporary Art’s upcoming exhibition, Bird & Flower: Poetic Paintings by Wu Tianyu will bring Chinese Painter Wu Tianyu’s work to North America for the first time. This exhibition of large scale ink paintings on rice paper is a significant milestone in Wu Tianyu’s career as he explores and innovates on the journey of popularizing traditional Chinese culture and art forms. The artist incorporates the styles and subject matter of traditional Chinese painting, but purposefully re-weaves their grouping and composition into contemporary works of art that emphasize purity of form. He unites elements such as snow, foliage, and birds with modern aesthetic theory to yield something truly inventive. Using bold saturated color, he juxtaposes organic and geometric elements to create works that are both riotous and ordered. He eschews conventional compositions and lets the leaves and blossoms become designs and patterns, blurring the line between representation and abstraction. This exhibition will be a part of MarinMOCA’s participation in Asian Contemporary Art Week, a collaborative event from the Asian Contemporary Arts Consortium that celebrates and promotes Asian contemporary arts and design practices throughout the Bay Area, taking place September 19th through the 25th.