The magnificent rolling clouds, in the oil painting of the artist Yan Dong , billow to hit us in the crude gray-blue sky background, imposing their majesty and arrogancy. In two groups of works made of materials such as ceramics and iron respectively, we have an insight of fantastic combinations of past heroic model (Uncle Lei Feng), revolutionary logo (red star), modern consumerism symbol (KFC father), fashion symbols (logo of the LV and other luxury brands) with iron locks or military steel helmets. Just like other previous creations of Yan Dong, they invariably demonstrate the artist's personality traits of calmness, critical vision, honesty and melancholy . What secrets do they exactly tell us in the incredibly magnificent clouds depicted in the dry brush strokes and thick color layers? What intentions of the artist implied in the cracked magnetic glazed locks and rusty military helmets with "LV", "GUCCI" brands?When we saw the iconic nuclear explosion mushroom clouds, withering sunflowers in decay, cracked locks on behalf of the imprisonment, rusted steel helmets demonstrated authority and priority and logo of the luxury fashion brands, especially when we sniff out the strong declining and decadent air in his works, the answers will be self-evident that all the greatness, glory and correctness will become corroded rubbish and floating dust, totally thrown into the tremendous wilderness, and then scattered by the wind in the vast Universe without any trace.
Artist Bian Song is always fond of depicting a variety of images of dancing and dramatic scenes, in which the dancers with rich body languages do coincide with his personality of simplicity, extrovert, intelligence and acuity in reality. However, in these dark and desolate and even a little secretive and unpredictable works, we seem to find out the other side of the artist ---- unusually fragile, extremely careful and sensitively melancholy. We are wondering what kinds of ghosts haunted these dancers after all? In the canvas, a stage, a bunch of dim light, solo, duet and irrelative group dance elements are described, and then totally thrown into an almost dim darkness, in which the scenes rendered by thin colors would make us breathless in an instant. Besides, the dancers on stage seems to reflect some spirits of struggling to shake off shackles rather than showing original elegant and gentle beauty. At this point, the painting is like a flickering silent film, telling us some tragic stories full of darkness, farewell, decadency, choking and despair ...... The image of dancing is just a shell, through which naturally depicted, the artist reveals the very secrets buried in the bottom of his heart and keen observations and insights about world around.
The gushing rising bright clouds in Yan Dong’s works or those depressed dancers stumbling in the darkness in Bian Song’s works , conveys to us same special emotions including anxiety, obscurity, irritability, sadness, desolation and even the boundless despair and disillusionment. Whether they could be recognized as the emotions of the era is another matter at the moment, but in deed, radar waves emitted by the two artists from their soul are capable of helping us capture the feeling of survival at present and anticipation of the future.
