SGA 沪申画廊 上海｜学术文章｜吴蔚：建构的视线

American psychologist James J. Gibson's (1904 - 1979) wrote in his Theory of Visual Perception that the raw material of perception is not sensorial data but environmental information. In other words, the brain completes the picture vision of what we see, not the eyes. Here, the presented works address the notion of line and abstraction, recording perceptual fluctuations and transience through the artists' brushwork rather than a mimetic transmission of images received by their retina. Similarly, line, which appears as a fundamental element found in all these works, refers also to a stream of thought and a reflection of spiritual condition. These paintings do not share a common experience with the audience, i.e., they do not seek to evoke a form of recognisable perspective or experience from their audience. Instead, they carry a level of intimacy stemmed from the artist's personal experience and reveal to us something inimitable. They can surprise, befuddle, tug on our heartstrings, or/and open our eyes. They endow us with an understanding that some works require a long, contemplative gaze, and that our subconscious emotions require us to internalise the path of seeing into a meditative reflection.

For a talented painter, the challenge is not about achieving a particular visual outcome, but avoiding settling too immediately or comfortably with one preferred effect. One should always be sourcing for new artistic ventures, setting new obstacles and shuffling with new formulas so as to stimulate his/ her creative process. Such exemplary is found in artist Liang Quan. As someone who actively looks ahead, Liang's art is a seamless blend of his artistic intuition and philosophical ideologies. In terms of method, Liang creates by re-assembling shredded rice paper fragments and dividing his composition into geometric forms. Strictly speaking, the accurate rendering of texture or colour with Chinese ink on paper is not Liang's primary goal. Instead, his focus resides in the conceptual articulation of layering, combination, movement and spatial distance onto paper, pursuing to balance formal freedom on the basis of structural painting. The juxtaposition between the frailness of rice paper and the stability of his pictorial composition exudes mesmerising tension. And while his works appear chiefly abstract–– with un-prescriptive complexity and contradiction–– they convey a complete and immersive visual and psychological experience that honours great traditions throughout history. Happenstance or not, these lines and folds, which peek along the perimeters of his paper, create a looping timeline that link us between the past and the present.

In Qian Jiahua's paintings, lines form contours, shapes, images, and objects. While her paintings may draw parallels to the characteristics of Colour Field painting, they are in fact, a graphic interpretation of the world through the artist's lens. Sometimes, her varying red, orange, yellow or green fields act as fillers that create structural support for her lines. Look again, and their function switches to that of a hinge that opens to the next room, an implication of the brewing momentum lodged beneath each layer. Here, we see a gamut of hard-edge colour planes readily permutated into stripes, blocks, and lanes, all harmoniously co-existing in a flat, abstract composition. Qian’s paintings are a multifaceted continuation of deformations or reformations that plays into a promise: what you see may or may not be what you get. Essentially, her economy of coloured forms takes on a subtle, dynamic illusion that idiomatically reflects our external reality.

From her paper cuts to her brushwork of interweaving lines and the interstice of textures and patterns, Song Xin's visual expression brims with a seemingly primitive but immaculately constructed aesthetic appeal. The artist’s "Wave" series, 2021, named after the Chinese character "水" water, comprises biomorphic portraits of the brain and can be seen as a stylistic nod to Cubism. As they simultaneously overlay and disrupt the composition's overall spatial consistency, these pieces are reminiscent of our human mind–– a tangled labyrinth of endless desires and melancholia. As Song intuitively and emotionally demonstrated in her installation "Extension", the versatility of paper transcends beyond its physical properties as a medium or material. For her, it is a vital component in her life and the locus of her artistic vision. Through paper, she can mould life to form at will.

In Zhang Haijun's paintings, we can see his interest in the way images interact with our surrounding world. The unusualness captured in each composition reveals the artist’s fascination with a realm that extends beyond the canvas, and the relationship between colour and form. His visual language slides effortlessly between abstraction and figuration with influences from previous expressionist and constructivist periods. Each piece is emotionally charged, trailed in blinding yellows and burning collisions of crimson and orange, often resembling the physical phenomena of bodily outbursts and struggles. With a stream of gnarly, distorted lines, Zhang guides the audience onto an indescribable path of visual exploration.

The challenge with abstract art is that it can never be neatly categorised in general terms as a pure art form. For one, it is related to the experience of the real world. In this exhibition, abstraction does not circumscribe to an absolute void/nothingness where everything dissipates without a trace, it is featured as a dynamic art form, and quintessentially, a fervent existence.

by Wu Wei