The paintings in Infinite Reproduction
Tian Kai   

Xue Jun once was the one “who can paint”. As most other artists, he accepted traditional training education. He drew gesso sculptures, figures, still lives in scrupulous details. Those sketch homework in his early days even revealed his plan of trying to engage in realistic style painting. Of course, thanks to his sensitivity, he was fully aware of his talent. He abandoned the academy-style, and soon established his own distinctive style.

Since then, Xue Jun became an artists “who cannot paint”. His latest works is particularly difficult to classify. It is hard to describe the works into a certain style. The brushwork and color both accord with the character of tattoo. With the paintbrush as the needles, and the white canvas as the skin, he endlessly creates out the totem of his mind. In his paintings, there is full of the air of Anthropology magnum opus “Golden Bough”. Peanuts, pods, big trees, little figures, valleys, relics --- the artist is just like a flamen that is good at painting, recording all he saw. And some weird things --- pods and ruler, bending keys, the separated roads, drifting trees --- have the obvious feature of witchcraft. When he is creating, his hair is messy, his face and body is covered with color. He was so determined, so orderly, so unhurriedly to draw out the fictitious scenery, just like being bewitched. It makes me to believe that he is driven by some kind of witchcraft. Or those images come out from the hint of God?

The complex image still contains a kind of trend and order. Numerous color points are linked by delicate veins or capillaries. It seems that, in artists’ eyes, all in nature are living organisms. Their strength, which is hiding in the constantly reproduction and revolution, is awesome. And the human, the one in nature, seems so small and weak.

So, Xue Jun is closed to a “plain” artist, as Rousseau (Henri Theodore Rousseau) and Tanguy (Yves Tanguy). And he is also very familiar with Chinese traditional art and has deep understanding the idea of “the painting based on one’s thought” in <SHI TAO Drawing Language>. He finds out a possibility of painting. That is: when you give out the root, vein, and the blood, the organism is formed; after that the picture can grow itself and spread to where it should go. Here, “artist”, “creation” both becomes nothing.