Artist Profile: Bao Lede

Bao Lede is an artist who has found his home a world away from Inner Mongolia, China where he was born. As gallery owner of the Tao Water Gallery in West Barnstable with his wife Dian Tong, since the summer of 1999, the couple have curated a globally expressive collection of fine art that graces the walls of the multi-floored, spacious gallery. Lede’s paintings are instantly distinguished from the others, primarily due to his evocative interpretation of the natural world found just down the road at Sandy Neck and the surrounding dune landscape. 

Hiking in the dunes has been his daily routine for years, and this daily regimen has given him endless inspiration for creation. His series, Fly Over the Dunes and Marshes, is an ongoing visual narrative which has featured these subjects for over 15 years. When you come close to Lede’s work, you will instantly recognize it as the Cape, but not the Cape that exists on a postcard. The landscapes contain a different feeling that is usually only felt when standing on the dunes. The dunes or marshes are painted in different colors of different seasons, and they command the viewer’s attention to the canvas in a silent, powerful embrace. The landscapes present a multitude of energies, and express both gentle tranquility and purity, as well as the overwhelming power of the sea, sky and earth, evoking an emotional response that reflects the connection one has with nature. 

The connection between man and nature is what Lede strives to express in his life’s work. For many years, he has created spaces, shapes, forms, colors, light—an unspoiled nature on canvas. The difficult part is to limit what he sees, “Nature itself, without human interference—the purer, the better,” he says. “Human perspectives always make mistakes. If you…