Inn in Midair

By Zhu Zhu
                         
"A great dreamer experiences images from dual angles, down-to-earth and celestial. "
--- Gaston Bachelard
  
Over the past two years Wang Yabin has given an impression of reticence on the subject of his work. His studio in Zhengzhou has become somewhat mysterious, as if he were busy refining a new potion in his alchemical furnace. However, he has not gone into complete seclusion during this process in the manner of a Daoist practitioner. Every now and then he lets people have a glimpse of his fruits. There were new works by him in the “Reshaping History” exhibition half a year ago, including a suite of small paintings and a larger one titled “Elephant Constellation.” Relatively speaking, small paintings have been an area where he has taken an unshakeable position, like a magic carpet on which he can fly and occasionally favor us with a glance as he passes by. As for large paintings, they are like a genii he wants to subdue; they are an unresolved issue, a syndrome for him. The dimensions of his “Elephant Constellation” are fairly large, or perhaps one should say they are sufficiently large for him. An underlying note of loden green, and on a ridge-top strewn with broken rocks, a few people are looking up into the sky. In midair one sees the silhouette of a short, doublet-clad figure, pulling at an elephant which emits a glowing light. Judging from its bodily outline, it is a young elephant. Its front legs are slightly bent, from resistance to the force dragging it forward. Apparently it does not wish to be dragged off just now.

This elephant’s shape is revealed in outline by points of golden light, like a cluster of stars in the sky assuming the shape of a constellation. Of course the “Elephant” constellation does not exist in reality. This is a figment of the painter’s imagination, an act of naming, or to put it with a bit more flair, it is an individual’s signature on the sky.

As for wild leaps of imagination, Wang Yabin has never been lacking in this respect. His paintings have always been “a kind of automatic writing of the spirit, filled with capricious nuances; laden with fugues of remembrance.” Images of past civilization are placed in fragmentary form against a subdued and weathered background so as to be encountered by a wandering gaze. This has been the typical space evoked by his paintings for quite some time. But in his recent phase, especially in the series of altered creations he has done around the subject of “Elephant Constellation”, he has given clear evidence of change. Intuitively speaking, his works tended to depicted scenes on the ground or underneath it, and were immersed in nativist imaginings, from which he wove a notebook of recorded visual oddities. In his new works, he places unearthed or fictive images in the sky, giving a more buoyant, pellucid quality. Corresponding to this, his technique leans toward outlining; his clean, child-like, and at times unbending show a certain kinship with traditional stone carving and decorative bricks. This highlights and strengthens the object’s feel of isolated suspension. At the same time, the original dark backgrounds which indicated the land’s trackless spaces are converted to something more evocative of the night sky. Though the color retains its previous dark shade, the tone does not have the former uncouth hoariness; rather, it breathes with a sense of freedom and mysterious promise of the unknown.