Artist Interview｜Nicole Phungrasamee Fein：Drops From the Rainbow

Meng Xianhui: The title of our exhibition is from your paintings. So when you think about “Drops From the Rainbow”, what image first comes to mind?

Nicole Phungrasamee Fein (hereinafter referred to as Nicole): Like many young kids, the one thing I drew over and over again as a child was rainbows, but I was kind of obsessive about it. When I had my first exhibition after graduate school, I walked into the gallery, looked around, and thought, “I’m still doing the same thing I’ve been doing since I was a young girl.” It was a room full of coloured lines. They were not the same rainbows of my youth, but there was a direct lineage.

I absolutely love the title and concept you came up with for this exhibition.  “Drops From the Rainbow” makes me feel the awe and wonder of spotting a rainbow. It's always an unexpected gift to see a rainbow, and it always brings a smile and a feeling of hope and wonder. The way the sunlight hits the raindrops to create the full spectrum of colours is a fleeting moment of perfection. 

There is also a direct connection to one of my processes for making a watercolour in that I drizzle coloured water onto the paper. I think of it like creating coloured mist. The tiny droplets that fall onto the paper are like raindrops in a sense, trying to capture the drops from the rainbow.

Meng Xianhui: This exhibition showcases several series you created between 2020 and 2024. Could you describe each series and the themes you aimed to express? 

Nicole: I don’t usually show so many different bodies of work in one exhibition, but I’m excited to present these different approaches to my explorations with line and colour. One of the series is the “Joy Fields”, which I started during the COVID pandemic while being confined in lockdown. I found that exploring the interaction of colours was a way of having an adventure.

For several years before that, I had been using only black pigment to make what I call water drawings by letting water fall on the paper to create the drawing. With the “Joy Fields”, I was rediscovering colour and getting back to basics with these colour studies, focusing on the primary colours—red, yellow, and blue—seeing how they interact and viewing these very simple things with fresh eyes. I explored many ways I could play with the interaction of these three colours.

One of the ways was by creating my version of a colour wheel, where the primary and secondary colours are positioned on the periphery of a circle, and the inner circle shows the combinations of the primary colours. Another approach was to explore how colours interact by making square woven lines of colour, where the interplay of what goes on top and what goes underneath affects how the colours appear.

The application of colour and the order in which it is applied are critical to understanding what comes through and what lies behind it. This process allows you to see not only the tiny dots scattered around each other and placed side by side but also through the dots themselves. I am also very interested in textiles. It is often surprising to examine the selvedge edge of a piece of cloth and discover the many different coloured threads woven together to create it.

Selvedge edges inspired me to reveal and leave the edges of the pure colours visible, giving a hint of what was used to create the main colour—the body of the piece—in my most recent works for this exhibition. However, the colour became much more saturated as I applied many more layers to achieve a density and richness I hadn’t seen before.

Then there are the lines with Payne’s gray. I returned to this way of working at some point this year because I needed a way to calm myself. I hadn’t worked in this manner for about 10 to 15 years, but drawing these lines slowly, one by one, calmed my nerves and allowed me to take my time. By focusing on one colour and narrowing the palette down to just one colour, I could concentrate on rhythm and the patterns emerging from the lines. It was interesting to move back and forth between the monochromatic Payne’s gray and the multicoloured fields.

Meng Xianhui: I know that you have a special desk to paint your paintings. Are you still using it?

Nicole: My studio is at home in San Francisco. It is central to our home, and it connects the home to the garden. As you can imagine, it's very clean and organized. I designed the room, and my dear friend made most of the furniture and special equipment and tools for me to use, including a large worktable and an easel that sits on the table. 

The easel is designed so that I can turn my paper upside down or at any angle to draw the lines out and keep them at eye level the whole time. The size of the room also determines the scale of the work, which is relatively small. I think that the small scale requires viewers to get up close, much like visiting the studio offers an up close view of our home and family life.

One of the new ways that I worked for this exhibition was making all the watercolours outside on the deck just off the studio. I loved working outside, breathing in the fresh air, seeing how the light changed throughout the day, watching the clouds, and noticing the shifting colours of the sky. It felt perfectly appropriate, especially given San Francisco's famous fog and mist, to be creating this coloured mist outside, where the weather affected when I worked and how I worked, creating these misty atmospheres. It just felt right to do it outside.

Meng Xianhui: Your work has evolved in shape from squares to circles to rectangles. You described this as a slow yet significant progress. Why do you characterize it this way?

Nicole: Working with the clarity, simplicity, and symmetry of a square, I find infinite possibilities. The centeredness and stability of the square are offset by its potential to expand equally in all directions. And with the circle, there’s always more beyond what is visible. I find that same sense of infinity, and even the circle can feel still and stable when it’s framed within a square. The circle feels deeply connected to the natural world, to patterns, elements, and cycles. 

The rectangle is brand new for me. I spent months agonizing over the proportions after years of working strictly with squares. I finally ended up using 2×3, which approximates the Fibonacci proportions. The rectangle was very unsettling at first, but it was also a breakthrough in that it feels more connected to the natural world than the architecture of the square.

Meng Xianhui: You aim to convey tranquility to the viewer, almost completely concealing the difficulties of the creative process. Why did you choose this approach? What do you wish to communicate to your audience?

Nicole: In the work, there’s a paradox between tension and calm, between control and letting go. I want the work to feel as though it magically appears on the paper. Even though it’s very labor-intensive, I don’t want that to be the foremost impression. Perhaps if someone studies a piece and looks closely, they will wonder how it came to be and guess that it was very laborious. But I don’t want it to feel laborious. I want the work to offer a quiet moment of contemplation.

Meng Xianhui: You mentioned that you once struggled with oil painting during university, but your studies in China led you to discover yourself through paper and to continue using watercolour. Throughout your years of creation, have you experimented with other mediums? 

Nicole: That’s right. I struggled with large oil paintings like Kai’s work. Kai works brilliantly with oil, and in a way, I feel that his work zooms in and shows what’s actually happening in mine. It’s like viewing my work through a macro lens—up close and microscopic.

I’ve worked with many different mediums, but the primary way I like to create is through the accumulation of small increments—the way grains of sand form a beach or the passing of days builds a life. It’s about building something, one step at a time, through the repetition of an action to create something over time. Whether it’s pressing flowers and leaves to make a drawing, photograph, or collage, or stacking paper confetti, the process is meditative.

Once, I glued paper confetti face-to-face for six months to slowly draw a line from the floor to the ceiling. I’ve also made my own watercolour using iron oxide as the pigment. I’ve also experimented with different tools, from coloured pencils and felt-tip markers to graphite. However, showing watercolours here in China, 30 years after studying at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, feels like coming full circle. 

Meng Xianhui: You liken your creative process to walking: "When I paint, I feel as if I'm taking one step at a time, recording each moment and maintaining a steady rhythm, just like walking." In terms of a timeline, your exploration of colour is very clear, yet we see different series running in parallel. Why do you choose not to search for the limits of colour within the same contour before starting a new series?

Nicole: Working outside with many colours requires a certain kind of energy. Sometimes I need to come inside. Drawing lines slowly is very soothing and calming. It gives me a sense of peace.

From a practical standpoint, because the weather affects whether I can work outside, drawing the lines is a way to work if I can’t be outside. And physically, the strain of a repetitive process is hard on the body. So having different ways of working is healthier.

Meng Xianhui: We come to the last question. How long did it take you to master these? 

Nicole: I don't think I've mastered anything, but I'm trying all the time. For example, if you look at one of the Payne's gray line drawings, you may be seeing the tenth attempt at that one piece—either I'm not in the right rhythm, or something happens with the paper. There's always a challenge. It keeps things interesting because you can't predict what's going to happen.

I tend to try to control things. To create something that feels calm and tranquil actually requires a lot of control and precision. But I hope to let go more because ultimately, letting go would achieve a better result.