June 24th, 2015
Painting becomes an instinct mechanical response for me, which is similar to the homework of everyday. When my head is in a mass, I can do nothing. It's like a "fight" against the canvas. It is better that I think about nothing, just following my instinct. As what they said "straight heart is the ashram "…
12May, 2016
Begin to paint a large painting, “Researching on clouds".
My ideas are a little rambling, as it is now.
Continue to draw "clouds”. But the progress is very slow. I do not know exactly which direction to go, as the current situation of myself …
July 2016
I got a sudden impulse to paint willow trees in front of my studio. The combination of willow branches, willow leaves and trunks in the picture is just like that of the traditional calligraphy.
The image here is a completely non-narrative carrier, greatly different from my early paintings，whose language is gradually getting clear. Less is more. Make it simplified and more simplified. Make it lighter and lighter.
Images appear slowly sometimes. When the painting is finished, I have already forgotten the original idea of it. There is a process of self-growth for painting, like my thought’s death and rebirth several times at the moment.
February 2017
When drawing willow tree, I find a dense way of drawing, lines repeat in the same frequency. I gradually forget "appearances" and "things" themselves. Only the brush follows my heart!
1 July, 2017
It is not easy to make a breakthrough on the traditional painting. What we see now are all New Media or imported forms, such as Installation, Images and Photos, In fact they are all copies of western art in the 1980s and 1990s.It is hard for Chinese to create our own "taste".
13 September, 2017
Calligraphy, like painting, needs the true nature of an artist.
21 September 2017
Painting “South Sea ” series, is 3.6 meters long. Tangible and intangible, image and without image, all of these interweave in the process of painting. I sometimes forget "images" in the impact of brush strokes and search for the beauty of "neutralization". Sometimes my idea rises, and then dissipates. I’m looking for balance between extreme complexity and extreme simplicity. The images in the picture discrete and integrate again and again. I experience the emptiness statement of myself when I’m painting. Finally I stop painting and finish the picture, which needs courage.
21 November, 2017
I start painting new pictures, continuing the “south sea” series, hoping something changed. From willow trees, clouds to the sea, the images become weakening. In other words, the subject is less important. Lines seems grow by themselves, creating a flavor of the works, which is also a way externalizing my mind. Sometimes it forms a mechanical memory of arm. Image of views are associated with image of mind. Calligraphy exercising, painting, reading are combined together, which confirms “the rest of a frenzy heart makes a Bodhi”to me.
10 February, 2018
Today I finished the “south sea” series （210 x 360）with a recovery of a totally free feeling that I got 10 years ago when I was painting the "fish" series. After half a month’s working, I found myself exhausted today! Now paintings have transcend the level of "expressing my thought through tracing shape of the object". Artists spend more energy in finding Tension and conflict within the picture. Generation of the images is only a point connecting the past, the moment and future.
"My images have two characteristics. They might expand, so they open in all directions, or they shrink, so they are hastily closed in all directions. Between these two poles, there is everything we talk about "(Rothk)
Rothk 's self-description has inspired me a lot on my works over the last two or three years. I wandered through images and traditions, not to get too close to tradition, with a hope of maintaining a free-flowing relationship with it.
“Nezha returns his body to his parents. If He wants free from his parents, he must has the body of previous life. If he doesn't return his body to his parents, he is always the son of them." Using this poetry tales Dongqichang told us the process of learning from the tradition, is similar to what Sunguoting mentioned in his “Book of Calligraphy”: "Studying ancient tradition and not against the spirit of the times." Shitao said: "the ancient man's Facial features cannot match my face ..."
Willow and Sea Series
This use of color in this series is as simple as possible. I basically only use black, white and brown, pursuing the aesthetics of Song Dynasties -- simple and light, bleak, highlighting the calligraphic nature of painting, but avoiding anything related to abstract expressionism. Trying to grasp the general atmosphere of the works and purify my thought, I pursuit an introverted purport in the works and exaggerated the expression of brush strokes at the same time.
23 November, 2016
Rewriting the traditional subject matter, learning its image language, and imitating the spirit of traditional paintings, I try to re-create by using visual elements of the synesthesia and the technique of magnification of fragments.
25 November, 2016
I should gradually weaken the narrative of the picture and make distance from my earlier thematic nature, and keep it within the boundary of figurative at the same time, which is a dilemma. Drawing away the narrative nature from the painting will make the concept of works hard to be constructed. But an infatuation with rhythm and tension of points and lines at the same time will lead me to the circle of abstract expressionism. My works should convey an empty state of anatta and non-me.
Willow series, are back to a similar way of painting the sea series with a simple state of the image,.
30 November, 2016
Representation of image has been weakened in my recent works, which is moving to something I'm not very good at. Sometimes I am trying to change my habit of laziness, but it seems to be unsatisfactory. The more I think, the weaker the picture is. Breathing. Breathing! The works need breathe. |