“The beauty of landscapes is you can change a lot of things and there’s still goin.” Kyle Ma’s paintings take the viewer on a journey, up mountains to observe bighorn sheep on western cliff sides, across desert landscapes and distant mesas, through lush pastures and untouched wilderness, but also, to airports where planes wait at terminals and bustling cityscapes where workers labor on road repairs. Upon first looking at Kyle Ma’s paintings, one is immediately drawn into the focal point, the central focus of the work. Of course, one might also be struck with how well executed the paintings are technically. Indeed, the technical aspects of Ma’s works are highly accomplished. But it is his ability to self-create a scene, to bend the landscape and subject to his needs, that brings his works to another level. The beholder is not only stunned by the details of the painting, but goes on the voyage the artist has laid out for them, becoming emotionally invested in the process.
“Art is not just about capturing the accurate depiction of a photo or a subject. I mean, I can do that all day if I wanted to. It’s easier to say this part looks different than the subject, so it’s wrong. But what’s hard is the more subjective aspects of it, like the kind of story it tells and how well it communicates to the viewers. What is the painting about?” Ma asks. For Ma, that answer has to do with the viewer prioritizing the subject over technique.
“I want people, when they look at one of my paintings, their first thought to be how beautiful and interesting the subject is. This should be the primary goal in pretty much every painting. What I really want to avoid is being someone who has a lot of technique but not a lot of substance. But I tend to see that sometimes in the art world. I want the first thing viewers appreciate to be my subject and then, it’s only secondary that they see how well I painted it. My technique should serve a purpose not the other way around.”
Ma was born in Taiwan, and moved to Austin, TX in elementary school. From a young age, he took an interest in art, specifically painting. By ten years old, Ma was already painting with oils. Even at this early age, he was keenly aware of the great masterpieces of representational painting and was driven to re-create these pieces, no matter how many attempts it took.
“I really wanted to paint like one of the Old Masters. So, I asked
