陈作：林中造屋

“我并非虚空造景，我依然需要某种真实的印象，一个我走过的寒冷夜晚，一个我身边的朋友，几条村里踱步的土狗。‘林中造屋’更像是一种理想的未完成式，一种现实之外的真实，一种困境，和一种不适时宜的浪漫和努力。”

麦勒画廊北京部荣幸地宣布，我们将推出艺术家陈作（1990年生于湖南）的首次个展“林中造屋”，该展览主要展出了陈作过去三年在顺义罗马湖艺术区的创作，并藉此梳理、呈现了他自2016年以来的创作路径与方法。展览标题“林中造屋”囊括了本次展览的线索，抑或是一种关于艺术家自身创作经验的投射。

陈作的画作绝大部分是一种画家自证的方式，一个感觉、一段记忆、一个印象、一个符号、一个瞬间都可能是陈作创作的起点。“我迷恋那种随机感和不可控的东西，我觉得那就是绘画中的一种博弈。”雪、人与狗——这些近年来反复出现在陈作画面中的元素源于艺术家在北京顺义罗马湖艺术区的真实的生活体验。在创作中，陈作会反复抓取某种东西，但它并非是图像式的，而是某种“一直在追求的理想型的模型或结构”。

陈作的作品中充盈着对个体经验的觉察和强烈的冲突下的磨擦感，以及对抗下的秩序，看似抒情、浪漫，与此同时，又交织缠绕着对于周遭的反思与关切，是割裂的、痛楚的、危险的。其中《贵妃の爱》（2019，木板油画，108x 25 x 19 cm）是一场关于不安的凝视。在果酸和果蝇的共同作用下，逐渐腐败塌陷的芒果让陈作想起在金边大屠杀纪念馆所见的经验。陈作决定用一种肖像画的态度和观察方式开展创作，在这糜丽甜香的背后是一个画家展开共情的可能，试图拾起消费至上的日常中、微不足道的货物上的最后一丝尊严。

无论从色彩、质地，还是画面叙事角度切入，陈作的作品看起来并不轻松明快，斑斑驳驳的画面呈现出令人不安的冲突、割裂感。这一破坏式的行为并非某种刻意的经营，而是艺术家试图在明晰的图像和混沌的感觉（偶然性）中找到两者合拍的清晰、和谐的统一。在陈作看来，重要的是绘画过程中留下的个人的行动痕迹、图像之上的物质累积和图像形成背后的思考与对抗

“我一直觉得这个时代是一个不缺怀疑的时代，但是缺少相信，真正的相信。我还是想去抓住一些可以相信的东西。”陈作一直试图通过绘画作为媒介对现实中的割裂予以弥合，正因如此，我们能从他的作品中解读到对于完整性的强烈的追求，这正是艺术家口中的“古典主义的底色或是难以避让的路径”。

凝视陈作的作品，在神秘与沉静之余，我们还会惊喜地感受到一股轻狂不羁的“少年气”，犹如稚嫩的幼兽向着天空龇牙咧嘴，又糅合着几许冷酷、浪漫的诗意。观看陈作的作品绝不轻松，时间与劳作的痕迹层叠累积于画布之上，创作路径的准确性和丰富度也让观看变得更具挑战、更有趣。

“I don't create scenes out of nothing. I still need some true impression: a cold night I walked through, a friend by my side, a few mutts pacing about in the village. ‘The Unbeatable Winter’ is like an ideal imperfect, a truth beyond reality, a predicament, a romanticism and effort out of step with the times.”

—Chen Zuo

Galerie Urs Meile Beijing is honored to announce The Unbeatable Winter, the very first solo exhibition of Chen Zuo  (b. 1990, Hunan, China). The exhibition will primarily present works the artist created over the past three years at the Roma Lake art district in Beijing, and will sift through the artist’s creative trajectory and methodology since 2016. The exhibition title The Unbeatable Winter is the thread that runs through the exhibition, as well as a projection of the artist’s creative experience.

Most of Chen Zuo's paintings are exercises in self-affirmation as a painter. A feeling, a memory, an impression, a sign, a moment, any of these can be a creative spark for the artist. “I’m obsessed with the sense of randomness and things which cannot be controlled. I think it's one form of struggle in painting.” Snow, people, and dogs—these recurring elements in Chen Zuo’s recent paintings are a part of the artist's real life experience at Roma Lake. When creating, Chen Zuo repeatedly grasps a certain thing, something which isn't graphic, but is instead “a model or structure of an ideal form I have always been pursuing.”

Chen Zuo's works are filled with perceptions from individual experience, the feel of abrasion under intense conflict, and the order that lies beneath the surface of resistance. They appear expressive and romantic, but are also entangled with reflection and concern about their surroundings. They are divided, anguished, imperiled. The artwork GuiFei の love (2019, oil on board, 108x 25 x 19 cm) is a deep gaze into unease. Mangoes rotting under the joint effects of citric acid and fruit flies reminded Chen Zuo of what he saw at a Killing Fields memorial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Chen Zuo decided to approach the creation through the attitude and observational methods of portraiture. Behind this extravagant sweetness is the potential for an artist to engage in sympathy, an attempt to grasp that last thread of dignity within the consumption-dominated everyday.

Whether in terms of color, texture, or the picture's narrative perspective, Chen Zuo's works appear anything but relaxed. The mottled plane reveals an unsettling sense of conflict and rupture. This destructive behavior is not intentionally orchestrated, but is the result of the artist’s search for the clarity of synchronicity and the unity of harmony between a clear image and a sense of chaos (chance). For Chen Zuo, what matters are the traces of individual action left in the process of painting, the accumulation of material, and the thinking and opposition behind the formation of the image.

“I have always felt that this era has no lack of skepticism. What it lacks is belief, true belief. I want to grasp onto things that can be believed in.” Chen Zuo has consistently been trying to use the medium of painting to mend the ruptures in reality, and because of this, we are able to see his powerful pursuit of wholeness in his works. This is what the artist means when he says that “the classicalist undertone is a path that cannot be avoided.”

Gazing at Chen Zuo's works, beyond the mystery and solemnity, we are also met unexpectedly with an unbridled “youthful air,” like a young beast baring its fangs at the sky, yet mixed with a cool, romantic poeticism. Viewing Chen Zuo’s works is not a relaxing affair. The traces of time and labor stack up on the canvas, and the precision and richness of the creative path makes the act of viewing more challenging and fascinating.

陈作

Chen Zuo

艺 术 家

陈作，1990年生于湖南，现生活、工作于北京。2011年毕业于中央美术学院附中，2014年于东京多摩美术学校交换学习，2015年毕业于中央美术学院（本科），2021年毕业于中央美术学院（硕士）。
Chen Zuo was born in 1990 in Hunan Province, and currently lives and works in Beijing. Chen graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts Attached Middle School in 2011; attended Tama Art University in Japan in 2014 as an exchange student; received his BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2015, and his MFA in 2021.