48"x36" Original Oil painting by Z.Z. Wei
At first glance, we are content to see Wei's works as spare and beautiful renderings of the Pacific Northwest landscape. A lonely road sign, a single cloud above rolling wheat fields, a small car moving down an empty highway—these are the subjects they offer us. They are evocative and lyrical and possessed of a haunting singularity. They have the uncanny ability to transport us to a place where time stands still, where the earth holds its breath, and the objects and affairs of ordinary existence come alive with an inner luminescence.