Several months’ preparation came to the end. Busy and tired, on this tranquil winter night, I finally capture a moment to contemplate. Old days’ feelings mix with present thoughts, flooding away my weariness. Leaning against the window, lost in my reverie, I suddenly have the urge and interests to say something. However, to make the complicated story simple, I feel obliged to the bygones, and this article is a review, or it’s just my monologue.
Painting is the only thing that I can decide on my own. It can be both extremely simple and redundantly complicated. I keep searching my own painting languages, intersecting with the social reality; not just focusing on the superficial traditional expression, but going deep for letting out my own voice. I have extreme sensibility for life and art, which enables me to grasp the transient inspiration fleeting through my brain and pay attention to individuals’ living conditions and relevant phenomenon. There’s no specific case analysis; it’s all about the uncertainties of visible and invisible, knowable and unknowable as well as solvable and unsolvable. I never point out what’s right or wrong, and neither do I tell what’s good or bad. I hold an idea of dual possibilities towards men and stuff. In order to find a new growing point for my paintings, I never restrain to one style or technique. When start painting, I can feel the ongoing magic power between time and space with the fun of returning back to a natural state.
Fragmentation and loneliness, elapse and reminiscence or some kind of simple idea are the nihility and obsession rooted deep in my soul.
When everything comes to silent at night, I pick up my paintbrush, devoting myself into the pictures. It often feels like entering a state of selflessness. Chuang-Tzu once said:” Use your sensibility, not your eyes.” If analysized in the perspective of art, I would like to have this kind of fascinating perception with my muse.
Painting what you think may be many painters’ spiritual pursuit. In this way, I tend to attach my own life experience and true feelings to the essence of my works, which endows them with a fresh sense of presence.
From my point of view, painting is like all the other artistic creation, the more you focus on yourself, the more freedom you get.
Simpler and purer things are more reserved and meaningful. Nietzsche once said:” It is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously his roots struggle earthward and downward into the dark.
Similarly, I like to seek profundity and tranquility and cherish the sense of warmth, horror, loneliness, melancholy and nihility they bring to me. It is in this kind of emotion and atmosphere that I can truly approach my heart and find my own odor, which are the signs of memory and traces of life.
Freedom is like some kind of feelings and fates that you can never solicit. It may be difficult for human bodies to be free, but the soul can have a view of burning wildness, passion, fairy tales and freedom in this blank world. When freedom runs into detachment, many deductions thus coming out. The exhibition is named the Detached Lure, which agrees with my reflections and insights. I tend to take both emotions and arts lightly and never ask for gains, but pains.
Thanks to many friends’ genuine help and encouragement, this exhibition held successfully. My longtime friend Mr. Zhao Li promised to help immediately when I asked him to do the planning work. He put a lot of efforts and passion to the preparation including writing comments for my paintings. The tacit understanding between us is beyond words. Mr. Song Xianting, Mr.
Yi Ying, Mr. Yuan Yunsheng, Mr. Dai Shihe, Mr. Bao Lin, Mr. Sun Jianping, Mr. Zheng Yi, Mr. Song Jin, Mr. Tan Wuchang, and Mr. Wang Xiaoyi are like my friends and teachers, writing articles for me attentively. Mr. Song Limin, Mr. Wang Fei, Mr.
Wu Zhenhuan,Mr. Yuan Ye. Mr. Zhou Shaolong, Mr. Liu Gang and Mrs. Liu Qingyang offered many precious advices to the exhibition, which made it possible for the Detached Lure to come to light. Furthermore, I want to extend my sincere gratitude to Mrs. Hu Yanyan, the general manager of Jia De and her staff, thank you for your support and contribution. And thank you my French friends Olivier Di Pizio, the chairman of the French New Realism Salon, Emmanuel Renoir, the president of the French Renoir Art Foundation and Noel Coret, the chairman of the Paris Fall Art Salon, thank you for your heartfelt blessings. Thank you my colleagues An Yu and Peng Zhi can in the Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University. Thank you all for your efforts and contribution! And I think the extra surprise and affection I get from the exhibition may lie in that.
The dean of the Institute of Fine Arts of China and the West, Chairman of the Education Committee of the Renaissance Research Institute at Renmin University of China, Professor at Renmin University of China, Guest Professor at the School of Law at Renmin University of China, and Guest Professor at the Academy of Arts at Xiamen University.
