Bay at Sunrise 1940

Dong Kingman made this Bay at Sunrise with lithographic ink on paper. Look at the radial mark-making Kingman uses to create the sun. It’s a set of radiating lines that burst out from the center, full of energy. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving around and around as he built up the form. The whole piece is made from these short, active marks. The land, the water, even the sky, are all constructed through distinct, rhythmic applications of the ink. See how the marks create texture? The ink is opaque, giving the image a strong contrast between light and dark. It’s almost like he’s sculpting with shadows. The way Kingman has built up the image with so many individual, yet connected, marks reminds me of Arthur Dove’s charcoal drawings of the 1940’s. Both artists have found a way to evoke the feeling of a place with a direct, personal visual language. They invite us to see the world through their own, unique lens.