Ye Guozhi dedicates his work to the story of the city, "an enormous space" that offers him a chance to express his inner world. As Vincent van Gogh found his spiritual dwelling in the starry skies, so Ye finds his in the urban jungle. 

      叶过之对城市情有独钟，他把城市描述为"庞大的创作题材"以此来倾诉着他的心声。就像梵高在星空里找到归宿，叶过之在城市里闹中取静。

     香港晚上.1 The Night of Hongkong.1     

                    纸本水彩，2016

     Ye doesn’t have much work available for viewing online, but what is available is all about the city. Each image contains a warmth that is hard for cameras to capture. 

     他放在个人主页上的作品并不多，他认为更多的作品应该是在身边的城市里，而这是相机抓拍不到的。

     "My city works are based on real-life scenes. Whenever I see a beautiful place, I snap a photo. But those photos can never capture my original emotion, and that’s where my paintbrush comes in," Ye said.

     "我的作品灵感一般都来源于生活，我会留下生活中的美，只是这些美是无法通过照片所体现出来的，我会用画笔留下它。"

     Night scenes are Ye’s preference. Some people have said the darkness gives his work a depressive feeling, but Ye insists that there is still warmth to be found in the cold night. He says the lost, dark days in the city reflect a formative trauma when he was neglected by his parents. That experience became his primary incentive for artistic creation.

     晚上的夜色是叶过之的最爱。有些人认为黑暗会使一幅作品的主题更倾向于黑暗，但是他始终认为即便是冷色中也可以找到一丝暖味。这像是一种陪伴，也更是他灵感的来源。

     这一刻的停留 The Moment That Stays

                      纸本水彩，2016

     "When I was in elementary school, I spent a lot of time shut up in my home and watching the pedestrians go by. I yearned for freedom, and all the merry things I saw outside my window," Ye said. One of his earlier works was Blue May, which depicts a car’s red taillight fading into the distance on a lonely highway. "

     当我在小学的时候，我经常在家里看外面的行人来来往往。我内心渴望自由，也感受着窗外的愉悦"。在他早期的一幅画作《蓝色的五月》中，描绘的是一辆车在夜色下从视野中远去。

               《蓝色的五月》Blue May 

                      纸本水彩，2016

     "It seems like only by running away can I be away from that time," Ye said. "Every time I see my old painting, it reminds me of some bittersweet memory." Roads appear in many of his paintings as a symbol for hope. 

     "貌似就像远去的车那样我才能远离我的现实吧。当我看到我童年时的画具时，脑海里总是喜忧参半"，而画中前方的道路则是希望的象征。

     Ye’s recent work experiments with oil paints. The latest is a graduation project titled A Lonely City, a very geometric and abstract way of describing his favorite space. "I hoped to present more grandiose cities in a 2d space with this painting. The little man on the right side of the picture was a figure from my early works," Ye said.     

      在他近期的作品中，一幅叫《孤独的城》的作品以一种自我的视觉表现了独我空间的存在。"我希望在平面的纸上能展现出更深层的含义，画中右侧的人一直以来是我作品中的象征"。

                 《孤独的城》lonely city 

                      布面油画，2016

      Ye said that in spite of his recent studies, he has no plans to shift from watercolor painting to oils, though he has considered ways in which he might mix the two.   

      他还说，他无意将自己的风格从水粉转移到油画上，但是有可能他能将这两种画风所结合，进而达到又一种感觉。

     According to his website, Ye has completed five collections. In addition to the city theme, Ye is also working on a series of watercolor paintings of people spotted on the street. 

     从他的个人主页得知，叶过之已经完成了五幅作品。在新创作的城市主题下，他创作了很多以水粉为基础的，描绘着那些忙碌的人群。

        香港晚上.5 The Night of Hongkong

                      纸本水彩，2016

     "I want to hold a solo exhibition when the city theme comes to an end. I want to pull others into my world – to feel what I feel," Ye said, "Then I can stop working on the city creations and pursue another inspiration." 

     "我想等城市创作结束的时候办一场展会，邀请人们来感受我的心声，在这恰当的时候或许我可以去追寻另一份灵感"。