【即将展出】平行线——刘曼文作品展·无锡

漫步是一种状态，漫步是去目的性的活动。漫步的目的就是漫步本身，漫步之人没有目的地。这是刘曼文在园林系列中要抵达的状态。她不再用画面去表达一份强烈的观点，或者输出一份信息，她要打开园林的空间，创造一个无尽的感知的时空。王维的《鹿柴》描述的也是一种漫步的状态。“空山不见人，但闻人语响。返景入深林，复照青苔上。” 园林的空白之处，亦是无尽想象的空间。

Ramble is a state. Ramble is an activity that removes purpose. The purpose of ramble is ramble itself. There is no so-called destination. This is the state that Liu Manwen wanted to achieve in the series of the Gardens. At the stage，she no longer uses images to express a strong point of view or output a message. Instead, she wants to open the garden space and create a boundless perceptual universe. The Deerpark Village by Wang Wei also describes a state of wandering: "No wight is seen in the lonely hills round here, But whence is wafting the human voice I hear? So deep in the forest the sunset glow can cross That it seems to choose to linger on the moss." The blank space of the garden contains infinite imagination.

在画布上的涂抹，是她的漫步，在时间中，前行又折回，每一次的风景都不同。漫步与沉思，是同时发生在心灵中的事情，让人内观，并拥有属于自己的时间和节奏。

Smeared on the canvas is Liu's ramble. Forward, back, and the different scenery flashed by in time. Ramble and meditation are simultaneous events in the mind that inspire one to look inside and embrace one's own time and rhythm.

这个过程，并不容易。因为刘曼文的绘画功底实在太过深厚，犹如绑在身上的沙袋。她要把那些沙袋都卸下，身心轻盈地进入一种流动的感受之中。她的乐趣也在于此。有时候，看似简单的画面上，她已经来来回回涂抹了几十遍——在画布上塑造一个稳定的结构，对她轻而易举，但她想让这份结构富有流动性，甚至接近一种危险的失控，这才是让她心跳加速的绘画快感。唯有如此，画面才能提供更丰富复杂的体验，让观者的视线在她的园林空间中流连忘返。

The process is not easy. Because her superb painting ability always shapes the works, but in a way, they are also like sandbags strapped to the body. She longed to unload the sandbags and dive into a feeling of flow. That's what her interest. Sometimes she has applied dozens of strokes to seemingly simple images – For her it is easy to create a stable structure on the canvas. However, she expects the structure to be fluid, even close to a dangerous loss of control, which is the thrill of painting that makes her heart race. Only in this way can the picture provide a more complex experience, making the viewer's eye linger in her garden space.

高居翰在《不朽的林泉》中梳理了古代的园林。古人建园林，是自成一个世界。园中的一切都可以与外界无关，园林中的时间和心灵是被园林笼罩和保护的。刘曼文追求的不仅仅是古代园林的趣味，让她有幸福感的是让灵魂保持在一种敏捷的状态和活动之中。这是园林系列的精神性所在。刘曼文在漫步之中，也创造了一个自成一体的心灵世界，园林一开始是她的绘画对象，后来成为了她的方法论和路径，到最后，当艺术家的主体消融于园林的漫步之中，园林成为了艺术家的心灵，也成为了目的本身。

James Cahill combed the ancient gardens in Garden Paintings in Old China（2012）. He suggested that the ancients were building a universe by building gardens. The presence of the garden is isolated from the outside, in which time and mind are shrouded and protected by the place itself. Series of the Gardens from Liu Manwen is not just about the interest of ancient gardens. What makes the artist happy is to keep her soul in an agile state and activity. This might be the spirit of series of the Gardens. In Spazieren, Liu Manwen also created a self-contained spiritual world: the Gardens, from the beginning as a painting object, became her methodology and approach. In the end, when the artist's subject dissolves through the ramble in the garden, the Gardens becomes the artist's mind ，as well as the purpose itself.

作品多次参加国内外邀请展并获第八届全国美展优秀作品奖。2009年获上海“白玉兰美术大奖”，成为中国美术史序列中的代表画家之一。《平淡人生系列》收入《二十世纪中国美术史》（油画卷），作品被中国美术馆、上海美术馆等收藏。重要展览：“中国油画肖像艺术百年展”“二十世纪中国油画展”等。多次被邀请在北京、上海、罗马、佛罗伦萨等美术馆及博物馆举办个人展览。

Graduated from LuXun Academy of Fine Arts in 1982.

Now lives and works in Shanghai.

Her artworks have participated in domestic and foreign invitational exhibitions for many times and won Excellent Work Award of the Eighth National Exhibition of Fine Arts. In 2009, she won the Magnolia Art Award in Shanghai, and became one of the representative painters in the Chinese art history. Her “Ordinary Life Series” were included in A History of Fine Arts in Twentieth-Century China (Oil Painting Volume), and were collected by the National Art Museum of China, the Shanghai Art Museum, etc. Her important exhibitions include “The Exhibition of China’s Hundred-Year Oil Painting Portraits”, “China · Art in the Twentieth Century”, etc. She has also been invited many times to present solo exhibitions in art galleries and museums in Beijing, Shanghai, Rome, Florence, etc.