Wang Xingjie’s entirely self-taught painting then reaches the same goal with the academism formation system. After ten more years of practicing in drawing, he finally finds his own personal characteristics and also meets a criterion in realistic painting. To the open-minded understanding in various formations Wang Xingjie, in fact, has never been in a deliberate rejection of the so-called “correct” method of forms. And his work remains consistently naive and imaginative. Perhaps, it explains that the general principle of being reproduced visual sense has a great influence on him. What we see in his painting is naturally a process of transformation – from interests into talents in him. The art work of Wang creates that all put up a straightforward and unconstrained character of young artist, in which contains completely about agonizing, uncertainness and self-deprecating humour. Most of his works do not present in a planning integrated way but showing his persist and rigid in searching after his ideal which brings genuine and vivid quality up to his creation. Wang Xingjie’s creation to a great degree benefit from the characteristics of painting, in reversal condition one can quest for the path of life and stick to practice at the edge of art field, as well as rigidly using self-conscious strength and awareness to find the true path of art and endue it with new meanings. No matter what one feels about individual life or to rethink and criticize profoundly about the significance of popular culture in consumerism era; no matter what sort of artistic language and object one will develop and try or to analyse and refine one’s existing opinion of experience and value, as an artist there will be a long way for Wang and of the same generation to go. And, what they strive for will make up the true and specific connotation of Chinese contemporary culture.
Deliberate
-Wang Xingjie Solo Exhibition
By: ZHANG Li
March 2010
WANG Xingjie who has never received any academic education of art in his entire life. In 1991, at the age of 20, to follow his family he started his career as a line-haul driver. Then, as a texi driver for two months in 1994. At Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in 1995 he specialized sculpture of schooling for a period of half a year, and worked right after for some sculpture projects. When he got down to painting in 1998 he was already 27 years old. For another career he chose was as a staff in Shenyang Dongyu Gallery, and attended a group exhibition managed by Hans van Dijk of China Art Archives ＆ Warehouse in 2000. He went to Tong Xian, Beijing, in 2001 to pursue his dream of painting and, eventually, created a number of fairly integrated works and took part in the group exhibition of Song Zhuang Artists. In 2003 he became interested in keeping dogs and even won a prize in Dog Show. He went back to Shenyang in 2005 as an art teacher in a secondary specialized school. He finally quitted this job in 2007 and re-started painting again until now.
WANG Xingwei, one of WANG Xingjie’s elder brothers whom had great influence on the art development of Xingjie. From 1994 WANG Xingwei’s works started to come to the forefront in the contemporary art circus of Beijing, and had an impact spreading on young artists in northeast, in which derived from his knowledge and attitude toward artistic style and technique skill, as well as the updated topic and content in his painting. To others, especially the new generation artists, the different way of drawing could bring about the possibility into popular culture of China. And that to WANG Xingjie, it implied that the orthodox form system was not the only method for painting, neither the professional by special training was the necessary and sole way for being an artist.
That is enough for WANG Xingjie to get a direct awareness of the ultimate purpose of professional training is to serve to the contemporary express in painting. Furthermore, technical skills in common sense is in existence of various comprehensions. To ignore or overlook the training of specialized skills can be taken as an experiment of presenting modern sensibility. Without learning and practicing through the basic structure element of painting, particularly in means of formation, just to improve and update the drawing during imaginative progress so as to have a frank and lively, daring and fresh technology strength and creative ability. Therefore, it ought to be a producing way of avoiding the barrier and resistance in one’s artistic creation. This is exactly the stand point of WANG Xingjie’s work of art, in which shows, to get by self-tuning and developing, how he has completed his discovery and expression about modern China in complex background of changing in society and culture.
But, the interesting part is that the conclusion of WANG Xingjie’s entirely self-taught painting then reaches the same goal with the academism formation system. After ten more years of practicing in drawing, WANG Xingjie finally finds his own personal characteristics and also meets a criterion in realistic painting rather than become another Henri Rousseau as a primitive painter. To the open-minded understanding in various formations WANG Xingjie, in fact, has never been in a deliberate rejection of the so-called “correct” method of forms. And his work remains consistently naive and imaginative. Perhaps, it explains that the general principle of being reproduced visual sense has a great influence on him. What we see in his painting is naturally a process of transformation – from interests into talents in him. As he always clearly knows the real purpose and meaning of art work and will not be trapped by technique skill. Moreover, he also avoids the highly stylized, master-like skill and ideal becoming his eyes of observing and experiencing but directly, through his practice, look for a suitable method of his own.
Nowadays, people have realized that there isn’t an only correct way for artist’s developmental line. The example of WANG Xingjie implies that his practice is just a possibility. With regard to be an artist, the determinant factor for one’s artistic path is various: class origin, family background, social environment, cultural atmosphere and individual temperament and so on. Each of those are mingled anfractuous, co-adjust and restricting, and produce different function when it comes to different people. On the other hand, these factors can exert a subtle influence on one’s work of art so that it will make the diversity and richness appeared in different works. The art work WANG Xingjie creates that all put up a straightforward and unconstrained character of young artist, in which contains completely about agonizing, uncertainness and self-deprecating humour. Many of his works do not present in a planning integrated way but showing his persist and rigid in searching after his ideal which brings genuine and vivid quality up to his creation.
As the youngest child in his family, WANG Xingjie actually set foot on the world quite early. But, when he started to observe and think deeply about everything as a painter he found the world around him was changing rapidly. And, in China, this transformation could not be seized easily by anyone. Therefore, under such circumstance, many of artists had to shift their concerns to personal life and with an eye to everyday experience, from which went beyond one’s imagination and situation. So were the early works of WANG Xingjie. The world presented in his painting was stimulated and mixed with selfness, family and society, and combine with the openness in technical skill, also to interpret the changes and overturned, overloaded and uncertainness among individual and social life.
Conceivably, that might be attributable to his experience of returning back to Shenyang from Beijing in 2005, and became a teacher in a secondary specialized school. When WANG Xingjie picked up his painting brush again he was unconsciously infatuated with the realistic skills by a huge margin. But, before long his interests turned into a conscious activity of seeking personal style in painting. He, for instance, made attempts to use small square brush strokes for shaping image and painted a series portraits and self-portraits to study how one could express figures properly, by accident, he also found the relation between tonal colours and the power it possessed. Showing through the picture one could see his insight, opinion, form and statute, etc.. Meanwhile, WANG Xingjie kept the peculiar mode of his thought about various styles and technical value and never took them as the centre of his painting. To a certain extent, the way he handled his drawing and his own method of formation would be very much different to academic style and appearance. As a consequence, the diversity was profound when the two paths had merged.
From this angle we see case of this, painting is the most commodious way to express artist himself while comparing with other medium such as installation, video and sculpture, and so on. In the duration of creative work, painter has unexampled decision-making power and less restraint by materials. The restraining factor and interposing from outside world can be avoided within a limited range. WANG Xingjie’s creation to a great degree benefit from the characteristics of painting, in reversal condition one can quest for the path of life and stick to practice at the edge of art field, as well as rigidly using self-conscious strength and awareness to find the true path of art and endue it with new meanings. No matter what one feels about individual life or to rethink and criticize profoundly about the significance of popular culture in consumerism era; no matter what sort of artistic language and object one will develop and try or to analyse and refine one’s existing opinion of experience and value, as an artist there will be a long way for WANG Xingjie and of the same generation to go. And, what they strive for will make up the true and specific connotation of Chinese contemporary culture.
