The Gaze and Recount in Universe
Text/Wang Pengjie
After 2000, an extremely diversified developing pattern shaped in Chinese contemporary paintings, and the figurative paintings which was once playing the role of "writings are for conveying truth " in the 80s and 90s also gradually differentiated into diversity of paths, the overall tendency of artistic concept of elitism and speculativism transformed to a more secular direction. This transformation was closely related to the dramatic changes in China 's contemporary society, the figurative painting urgently need more accurate expression about the current situation, the artists become more interested in the spiritual state of the people around them, therefore they invest more vigor in this aspect. As the active area of Chinese contemporary culture is mainly concentrated in the highly urbanized metropolis, therefore the character, landscape and all kinds related issues are bound to be what contemporary artists have to face, the expression of the visual quality of urban culture, and the analysis of the urban souls increasingly becomes the important direction in the creation of figurative painting, especially the group of young artists who were born in the 80s of last century, they are more enthusiastic and active about this. The post-80s artists were born right after the reform and opening up, they have personally experienced the reality that Chinese society transform from collectivism culture in the planned economy era to market economy and individualism culture, they generally have a profound emotional experience about the whole process of urbanization, and the sensitive ones in them have an even subtle understanding of humanity and culture condition after urbanization. Compared to their predecessors, most of them pay more attention to their own personal experience, they put down the heavy burden of grand narrative, lose the interest the straightforward critics towards the society, they believe more in their own personal perception, and take a individualistic road which is different from the traditional "realism " road.
Painter Biimrock was born in the early 80 's of the last century, he is just the kind of figurative painting artist I described as above, and he has a distinct individual characteristics in this group. His painting creation has a 10 years history, which helps accumulate very rich professional skills, he had also experienced repetitive painful process of thinking and practice, his new works in the past three years, are an conclusive showcase on this basis, which also concentratively reflect the inherent characteristics of his creation so far.
In my opinion, there are four pictorial categories of painting, which are: trace, modeling, image, narrative, these four aspects are interrelated, but also independent of each other, when the four aspects come together, not only they can be used as a reliable basis to judge the quality of painting, but also provide the audience the effective way understanding the paintings. For the above four categories, Biimrock has a conscious understanding, while he is industrial in polishing his own painting language, he never forgets to embed the texture of the language in the intent of the narrative as naturally as possible. Generally speaking, painting, as a whole, is the record and presentation of the traces of author, also the visual outcome of controlling plane media and creating stationary phantom by the author, and more is an open text full of narrative information. Only when these attributes seamlessly connect to become one integrated mass, it will be possible to complete a truly self-contained painting expression successfully. From his latest works, it can be found that Biimrock has achieve this fairly, it’s mainly by the virtue of the unique language and narrative logic that he could realize all this, below I will give some specific analysis on these two aspects.
To talk about Biimrock 's painting language, first we must have a basic understanding of his painting values. He studied his undergraduate course at the Oil Painting department of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, concentrating on the research into the observation methods and performance techniques of western figurative painting, especially passionate about the modelling concept and aesthetic temperament of the Renaissance masters, like great Giotto, Masaccio, Francesca, Uccello, Michelangelo, Jan Van Ike, Durer, Gruenewald, Cranach, all these artists are his favorite research subjects. There are many similarities in the painting character of these early figurative painting lawmakers, like they all paid great attentions to inductive geometric integration of the image figure, emphasized the contour of the object, respected the scenography, made full use of the planarity of the image, stressed on the order of form and the structural strength of the image, keen on the excavation and presentation of the intrinsic spirit, sincere and sturdy figure, sublime and solemn look, pursuit of solidification and eternity of figure modelling, the rational control of the subtle relationship of the inherent colors and so on, These art characteristics laid Biimrock’s basic artistic concept and aesthetic taste, this also has a lively reflection in his latest works, for instance, when he uses acrylic as the painting material, he intentionally pursues the effect of early Renaissance frescoes and the texture of Tempera. For great masters in ancient times, he has a heartfelt reverence, in the works like The Gaze in a Moment-The Salute to Francesca and Wings this is embedded very obviously. Besides these masters, Biimrock had also carefully studied the artistic method of realistic masters such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Velazquez, thus he got a thorough understanding about figurative realistic painting. All these determined that he would inevitably defend the value system of classical paintings, this urged him to carry out art practice with definite target, and also established future direction. After graduation in undergraduate course, Biimrock was admitted by Oil Painting department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute doing postgraduate stage study, which had also caused a significant impact in his artistic value. For a long time, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute beauty advocates the establishment of the independent personality, personalized art expression, opening and tolerant academic attitudes, especially encouraging the incorporation of modern and contemporary art achievements. Such academic soil further broadened Biimrock’s vision and led him to pay more attention to the instantaneity and timeliness of painting expression, to absorb the expression techniques and visual effects in modern and contemporary art, and to combine them with his early classical realistic experience, pouring the real experience of life into his works, then gradually broke the rules of academic concept, forming the increasingly independent painting language characteristics.
Among the post-80s painters, Biimrock looks very special because of the consistent value orientation of classical model of his works, in fact, what he advocates is not the traditional classical spirit, but the depicting strength of figurative painting and the persistence of high aesthetic standards. Generally speaking, the language mode of Biimrock can be summarized as the following points: rigorous and sturdy modeling, fine and delicate depicting techniques, various details in figures, subtle color layers, literalized symbolism and lyricism, distinctive sumbolism, dynamic integration of planar sense and vertical sense. These language characteristics in this batch of latest works are performed incisively and vividly, the linguistic performance of each work has different focus. In Sky Wheel 2013, he conducted complanation process to flowers and plants, with combination of virtuality and reality, elegance and delicacy; In Keep Watch, abundant color dots are applied to strengthen the starlight effect in the night, which also make the light permeate in the whole image with a glittering and translucent sense; In The Overpass Leading to the Platform, swarms of people gathered on the platform packed like sardines, the characters here have a dense form feeling, the heads of the characters are deliberately reduced to apparent spherical forms, making it bear more geometric elements in the clear composition of the image. Using his solid and stable techniques, the painter drew the details of each character with extreme patience, meticulously, empowering the complicated figures with convincing emotional strength; Old Neonlight, and Wordless separately set the key tone with planary light and single light source, all the perform methods are launching around the theme-light, the effect of light and shadow is rich, delicate and fascinating. On the handling of background, Old Neonlight uses glimmer to unify the distant view with full of rhythm, seeking subtle changes from the relationship of strong and weak in the dark tone of violet color; Dustless however clarifies the high-luminance zone of the child character in the picture, the darkening of the surrounding tone causes a radial effect, the handling of the background of this work uses the technique of the German Renaissance painter Cranach the Elder for reference, through uniform shading in the depressed tone, the plants are handled with both planarity and integration, and with the slight ornament of accurate and moderate light color, making the whole background come to life, without a spark of dullness; In Wings, the background is in a whole light gray domain, almost all left with copy space, and the variety of light and shadow make the picture full of sense of rhythm. Biimrock is keen to use planary forms in an unobtrusive perspective space, which reaches its climax in Spring 2013, the flowers, plants and floor tiles are overspreading with an almost average rhythm in the picture, Biimrock used a streak of light giving this highly balanced order a breaking force, this work shows no inflexibility, however it reveals a kind of estimable pure feeling. In my opinion, the best representing works for Biimrock’s painting language characteristics are undoubtedly The Moment and The Material for Dream, both of the paintings are building the image with the overlooking panoramic view, and both filled with author’s almost paranoia complex interest, especially in The Moment, the types and numbers of the objects are astonishing, giving viewers too many things to see, although the subject image of this painting is a reference from the the wings of Durer’s paintings, the objects lingering around are not only with different shapes, but also full of interest, so much so that in a certain extent, this painting becomes multi-centered image with a scatter perspective, almost every part of the image is repeatedly carved by the author to the full and convincing, also because the scenery is extremely complex, it helps Biimrock release considerable technical energy, this work undoubtedly has the summary meaning in his recent works.
The diversity of language patterns of Biimrock are corresponding to the diversity of narrative logic in his images. In fact, he has always been very partial to using images to tell the story of the heart. In general, the narrative of the painting is directly related to the pictorialization and symbolization of the image, or it can be said that the illusion of the image as a kind of important properties of painting, often build the necessary channel for the audience to get into narrative space, and the figure, form, symbol and props in the illusion and all such factors about image will be integrated to establish some narrative space which can make sense to people. The narrative logic of Biimrock has its own characteristics, it often uses very gorgeous mixed images to construct a kind of resonant narrative with multiple meanings, viewers tend to connect it to their own life experiences, and rebuild their life legends. Biimrock intentionally increases the information in the image, and blend the readability with the diversity of the narrative, the purpose is not just to satisfy his own aesthetic interest, more important is that he can weave a Universe that he understood, tries to translate the surroundings he observed and secular provide into a visual spectrum of synaesthesia, and uses his own consciousness to give a symbolized meaning to the material of individual life history. He is eager to express his secret pain in life, simultaneously comforting himself as well as some souls of the viewers that have mutual affinity by painting, it also explains why he wants to repeatedly struggle between the language and the motif of an image, those unspeakable contradictions between his inner passion and the persistence to the integrity of art, must find some reconcilable solution in one image, this is not the catharsis of desire, but the checks and balances between physicality and spirituality.
I use Universe to describe the narrative of image that he build, on the one hand, it’s because the content in his painting does have the all-inclusive implication, on the other hand, because the illusion world he built though very rich is not pointing to grandiosity, still providing the audience with a resting habitat in the feeling of empathy, what he has established is rather a Nanshan Hermitage than a religious altar. What he has repeatedly stressed is still the physical experience and spiritual situation of his own, and he believes that these perceptions can be shared with more people. The power supporting his creation seems to be an obsession, which convinced himself that to a certain extent such paintings let himself as well as some understanding minds get precious relief. Thus, we can see his complex though magnificent language characteristics, is just perfected constantly for meeting this narrative demands, the honest and secretive recount is his purpose. The most representive painting reflecting his narrative logic is The Moment, the scene of this painting is almost a small microcosm of human society, inside which lays many wishes of his own: the spherical elf or angel, the
head portrait in a state between life and death with eyes shut, the moist and open undeveloped land, men and women and animals and livestock from nowhere, as if these suggest it is a harmony land with animisim and bliss, even evoke biblical narrative in some scenes, what is for sure, such scenes must contain the allegorical poetry appeal from the author, and the overlooking view also implies that Biimrock himself is the creator of this little Universe, he watches everything living in the Universe peacefully from far away. Most of the time, he is also ready to create a lonesome scenario with no one present, a little bit sad, a little bit warm, revealing some marks of existence and fragments of life in the fascinating details, quite intriguing, like the sofa in Body Temperature placed in debris, and like the small flowers holding by small children in The Overpass Leading to the Platform. Biimrock wish to convey his perception about reality, but in a more surreal way. Sometimes in order to give audience clearer guidance, he would draw a character, which often is the incarnation of himself, appearing in a dreamlike background, such as in Old Neonlight and Wordless. Figurative painting, even lose a bit on the dimension of realism, still has to be vigilant about the simple, rough and look-and-say threadbare narrative, need to break the inertia of the so-called realistic theory of reflection as much as possible, the use of surreal, poetic narrative logic of Biimrock is deliberately keeping away from such bad practice.
Though the language texture and narrative atmosphere of Biimrock always has a touch of object grieving and slight sorrow, so far, I had never seen ominous omen or nihilistic self-abandonment in his paintings, in instead, I can find dedicated attitude of seeking truth and solid and cautious exploring spirit. I think, what he really wants to express is never pessimistic thought, but the magnanimous mental state with self-respect presented by his painting. In Dustless, the child who’s standing in the pond are very clear in the face and witty in mind, in his quiet meditation, seems that he just will reach his hand from under the water to the sky, lightening up the light in heart in a world surrounded by darkness. I think this is Biimrock’s biggest wish from the heart, he is not only blessing himself, but also blessing us, isn 't it?
