LANDSCAPES

MaiYap’s landscapes are done exclusively with palette knives which gives them a rich impasto look.  They are free and full of movement, yet intricate and detailed.

Her South Florida Painted Tapestries series, beautiful yet with a powerful ecological conservation message, are comprised of three distinctive stages that represent the different colors and moods of The Everglades National park.  The first, called Cloudscapes, portray the very recognizable sliver of grass and the immense, infinite blue sky above.  They evoke a perfect, peaceful, cool winter day in South Florida.  The second stage takes you deep into the woodlands and marshes.  Ms. Yap calls them Tapestries in Green.  This stage is like entering a magical land where you find rare birds, reptiles, exquisite orchids, and bromeliads in lush and exuberant, mainly green vegetation. The last paintings, Meditations, show the park viewed at different times of the day, largely sunrises and sunsets. Here the atmosphere takes precedent. One day the haze is thick covering everything in white, while another day the sun is so bright that it tints the landscape with fiery reds and oranges.

Mai’s works capture that split second when nature is perfect and unpolluted.