Artstyle ZZWEI

Artstyle ZZWEI is a tribute to the Painter ZZ Wei who's paintings of rural America capture the beauty and loneliness of the places and spaces he encountered.

Background

Z.Z. Wei was born Zhao Bai Wei on September 26, 1957 in Beijing, China. He graduated from the Central Institute of Art and Design in Beijing in 1984. In 1989, Z.Z. was invited by the Washington State Centennial Commission to participate in the Pacific Rim Cultural Connection Project and to be a resident artist at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, Washington. This led to another residency in 1991 at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Features of ZZ Wei's Paintings

ZZ Wei's paintings are both realistic and highly abstracted images of a world of rusted cars, abandoned buildings, roads and railway lines set in American landscapes. The harsh light and shadows evoke a sense of menace that extend the feelings of psychological angst that painters such as Ed Hopper and Andrew Wyeth conjured in their work. His style is simple in a similar way to Georgia O'Keefe. His images pack the same kind of punch that Giorgio de Chirico's surreal settings deliver. Taken as a whole - ZZ Wei's subject matter conveys an ambiguity about the relationship between man and nature. The relationship being a struggle, of man leaving his marks on the landscape, but of nature's ultimate and overwhelming power. The essential truth of this gives his work a timeless appeal.

Source images

47 source images were collected from places like Pinterest where I first came across his work, and formatted to 768 x 768 pixels for Lora Training.

ZZ Wei's distinctive calligraphic signature were left on the images intact and will appear from time to time. This seems only fair.

Key words include: silos, graphic shadows,

Application of LoRA

The main use case is to create similar landscapes in conjunction with digital artists preferred Base Models. My current favourites include PhotopediaXL, ZavychromaXL and JuggernautXL.

Although ZZ Wei did not (as far as I know) do any figurative painting, the LoRA is useful for applying brush work textures onto surfaces and the stylization of fabric folds, waves and hair.

The LoRA can be used in conjunction with other Artstyles or Effects to pull out other features from the noise-space into the picture plane.

The LoRA is capable of stylizing images like an image filter. You will need to play around with the de-noising strength depending on the effect you are looking for. [0.3 - 0.7]

Most of the images showcased have been upscaled and had a sharpening effect applied, to accentuate the contrast between light and shade. Softer edge treatments would also work.

https://zzweiart.com