“Whoever considers ‘cultivating his senses’ as the purpose and core of his existence, is an artist.” I have always relished this sentence, but sadly I forget who the author is.
While moving down the street, I enjoy taking random pictures of things others might not pay attention to. Sometimes the pictures are of basic street scenes which flash by my car window while I’m driving. Sometimes they are of some “unusual” scenes on rainy or foggy days. All of this is part of the preparation for my ‘yet to be started’ paintings. It is also one of the many ways I draw from the ‘senses’ one finds in nature.
I like to be alone! Lonely and free! Sometimes I go to the countryside and turn off my cell phone, just so I can be alone. Normally, using my camera, sketching pen or my own memory storage banks, I capture whatever it is that makes me stop to watch or look or that which touches me deep in my heart. I store these things, hoping to turn them into paintings in the very near future. I think in this way I can offer people a chance to see what I have seen, give them the opportunity to be touched by what has touched me and allow them to feel the way I felt at that past moment in time.
Life is sometimes like driving alone on the highway. The scenes passing by are always similar yet so different from each other. Without being chosen, almost like random selection, they are already there, waiting for you to embrace them with your heart and your feelings. You can never say that something doesn’t exist, simply because you can’t feel it existing. But for that which you can feel, it is already there, tucked away soundly, deep inside your heart.
White has no color! Colors are actually born within. One should look for colors in the colorless rather than in colors. I’m in love with black and white images and frames. Such images have non determinacy. Rather than conveying an image, blacks and whites do more in the conveyance of emotions. Black and white are colors which invoke a person’s memory. Multi-colors are the opposite way. They are plentiful and practical so consequently have no need of the heart’s translation.
Every time when I put colors on the canvas to finish one painting, the preliminary sketch of the next one will begin to come alive in my mind. The painting, physically in front of my eyes at the moment, is just a product of time and skill waiting to be finished.
The one waiting in the wings, off stage so to speak, becomes more appealing. I have been painting, trapped in this vicious cycle for a long time so consequently there are piles and piles of unfinished paintings filling every nook and cranny in my studio. But, this is the only way I manage to do so I finish the day, often without completing anything.
Before the idea of one painting comes to fruition, ready to place on canvas, I listen to the radio, watch TV or DVD movies, read or look through my many photos, imaging how the painting will materialize after I put all these images together. The most difficult part is to concentrate inspiration. Suddenly, arrives the moment when I can’t look at or listen to anything else. I allow no distractions and refuse to be disturbed. I subconsciously fiddle with my drawknife and palette while cigarette smoke whirls about me as my thoughts and spirits slowly sink and settle into a state of exhaustion. My heart becomes full of the anxiety far beyond description, until at last the image in front of my eyes grows clearer and more defined.
Then by natural impulse begins another vicious circle.
High walls with many and indiscriminant colors, ring the streets of Beijing. Calm and collected, they stately stand observing the passing of history, while presenting the passerby with reds, grays, and many other colors. The dirt, that at times peels away from them like a favorite yet forsaken cloak, changes like time itself in a way that we can scarcely perceive. The small grasses and other plants and flowers that grow at the lower extremities of the walls are actually the only true witness to those changes. These witnesses seem to want to say something to us.
I began to notice a wall and attempted to learn what was behind it. I want to do something, but I don’t know where to start. What I could do is to get to know this wall by it’s touch via the canvas, continually wishing it would speak out it’s mystery, it’s power and the history it conceals.
On occasion, many compositions of indoor scenes show up wistfully in my heart. It might be an unexpected entering through the door. It may be a frozen moment in time when just returning home or it may be an erotic dream during a summer afternoon’s nap. It is at these times I can’t help but in picking up my brush and paint as I allow my inner most thoughts, memories, feelings and emotions emerge onto the canvas. These are some of my happiest moments. My heart finding itself in a weightless state, obtains warmth and peace. I’m far away from the fickleness and noise of the world. I am my closest to the truth in my memory and I unconstrainedly touch the tracings left by time it’s self.
These personal works are the results of memories from a time when I stayed over the Villa of the “Eight Immortals”. They are also representative of my desire to seek for leisure and a pure existence despite the noise, hustle and bustle of life in the city. These are renditions of some momentary moods. By them, I hope to be able to taste and present life in a much more preferential way.
In these years of late and especially during the time when I was studying at the ‘Central Academy of Fine Arts’, I have paid close attention to the surrounding environment and the people who live and breathe it. I have captured what seems to be ‘the peaceful’ while concurrently discovering the spiritual world behind this peace. I am almost nervously sensitive about the ‘state of existence’, concerning those things of special value; “the sense of touch”, “the sense of sound”, “the sense of taste” and “the sense of vision”.
I have always been and remain consumed with the senses…
