张平｜《午后斜阳》和《躺在沙发上的阿籽》

此次展出的《躺在沙发上的阿籽》和《午后斜阳》，均来自艺术家的“微光系列”。该系列创作自2020年，在这一特殊的时间段内，张平的大部分时间都在工作室。在与屋内陈设的静默相处中，她渐渐对工作室环境变得敏感，那些以往习以为常的老物件的面目和情绪也慢慢清晰和细腻起来。基于对其气息的捕捉，张平创作了这一系列，以此延续其关于时间和生命的厚重与斑驳的探索。

The works on display, Sunset in the afternoon and Azi lying on the sofa, are both from the artist's Shimmering Light Series. The series has been created since 2020. During this particular time period, Zhang Ping has spent most of his time in the studio. In the silence with the furnishings in the house, she gradually became sensitive to the environment of the studio, and the faces and emotions of those old objects that she used to take for granted became clearer and more delicate. Based on the capture of those objects’s breath, Zhang Ping created this series as a continuation of her exploration of the heaviness and patina of time and life.

▎午后斜阳 Sunset in the afternoon 布面丙烯 Acrylic on canvas 100 x 80cm, 2020

张平喜欢搜集老物件，其中蕴含的使用者和时间的痕迹让她着迷。《午后斜阳》的创作灵感来自于工作室光线的变化下，老物件和人的关系的隐藏和显现。该作品描绘了一个青春期的女孩轻拢双腿，蜷缩在椅子上的场景，她轻闭双眼，头低垂在臂弯之中，似乎正处在困惑之中。

Zhang Ping likes to collect old objects, which contain traces of users and time that fascinate her. Sunset in the afternoon is inspired by the hiding and revealing of old objects and human relationships under the changing light of the studio. The work depicts an adolescent girl curled up in a chair with her legs lightly folded, and her eyes lightly closed and her head hanging low in the crook of her arm, seemingly in a state of confusion.

可以看出，该作品由三大部分构成，椅子、处在青春期的女孩和阴影。其中，椅子便来自艺术家的珍藏，已有几十年的历史。处在青春期的女孩以稍加虚幻的笔法画出，呈现出透明的质感，和以实笔画出的椅子叠加，形成一种飘渺的质感，好似人的肉身已经离开，灵魂的影像依旧残留。

It can be seen that the work consists of three main parts: the chair, the girl in puberty and the shadows. The chairs are from the artist's collection and are decades old. The girl in puberty is drawn with a slightly illusory brushstroke, presenting a transparent texture, which is superimposed on the chair drawn with a solid brushstroke, creating an ethereal quality. As if the physical body of the person has already left, the image of the soul still remains.

对张平来说，青春期的孩子是自我意识觉醒的时期，也是人最为敏感、困惑最多的时候。“她们有快速生长的敏锐的触角，急切地想要了解这个世界的真相。那是最纯粹，也最有灵气，最多疑的年龄，是一个人一生中最重要的时段。在不断自我质疑和肯定中，人在那个时段快速成长。人长大后就会被世俗化，困惑就会变得很少。”因此，她有意将处于萌动时期的少女和历经沧桑的老式椅子并置在画面之中，以显示那个转瞬即逝的生命阶段和永恒岁月之间的张力。

For Zhang Ping, adolescent children are a time of self-awareness awakening and a time when people are most sensitive and confused. They have fast-growing, keen senses, eager to learn the truth about the world. It was the purest, and most spiritual, and most suspicious age, the most important time in a person's life. In constant self-questioning and affirmation, one grows up fast during that time. As growing up, secularised and confusion will become rare. Therefore, Zhang Ping intentionally juxtaposes a young girl in her infancy with an old chair that has gone through a long period of time, in order to show the tension between that fleeting stage of life and the eternal years.

女孩和椅子的背后是一片黑暗，椅子下方分为两半，左侧是白，右侧是黑。黑白之间，阴阳游动。艺术家认为即便在世界范围内，中国传统哲学中的阴阳之学都是最基本最朴素的世界观。她有意识地在黑白之间进行模糊化处理，因为“所有微妙的关系都在交界处”，以此表现超越现实世界的更为宏阔的宇宙观。

Behind the girl and the chair is darkness. Underneath the chair is divided into two halves, white on the left and black on the right. Between black and white, yin and yang swim. The artist believes that even in the world, the traditional Chinese philosophy of yin and yang is the most basic and simple world view. She consciously blurs the line between black and white  in order to express a broader cosmology that transcends the real world. In artist’s view, all the subtleties are at the junctio.

一幅绘画，包含了艺术家对天地人关系，以及无生命的椅子和有生命的人之间的关系。谈及为何会将青春期的少女放置在这些关系之间，张平如此说道：“只有这个年龄阶段的人会关注这些问题。因为单纯、干净，所以敏感，所以才会关心这些问题，关注阳光和微风”。

A painting that encompasses the artist's understanding of the relationship between heaven and earth, and between the inanimate chair and the animate person. Talking about why she places an adolescent girl in these relationships, Zhang Ping says, "Only people at this age would be concerned about these issues. Because of their simplicity and cleanliness, they are sensitive, that's why they care about these issues, about the sunshine and the breeze."

▎躺在沙发上的阿籽 Azi lying on the sofa 布面丙烯 Acrylic on canvas 300 x 120cm, 2020

这件《躺在沙发上的阿籽》延续了艺术家张平对青春期阶段与老物件间张力的创作脉络，画面中的沙发来自在欧洲从事古董交易的朋友，已经有一百多年的历史。沙发本身的图案十分复杂，不同色块的格状图案相互交错。因此，为了保持视觉上的纯粹，张平将背景以黑色纯涂，这也和上述的《午后斜阳》形成对比。

This piece, Azi lying on the sofa, continues the artist Zhang Ping's creative lineage of the tension between adolescence and old objects. The sofa in the picture is from a friend who deals in antiques in Europe and has been around for over a hundred years. The sofa itself is intricately patterned, with a checkered pattern of different colour blocks interspersed with each other. Therefore, in order to maintain visual purity, Zhang Ping painted the background in solid black, which also contrasts with the aforementioned Sunset in the afternoon.

背景画好后，张平思索了很久，她想要把时年九岁的外甥女阿籽画在沙发上。“籽是种子，落在土里就能长出一个新的生命。阿籽的状态和她的名字很像，我是看着阿籽长大的，可以感受到她的生命状态和独特的情绪。我不大画陌生人，因为人只有个性化，才会有微观的细节。”因此，同此次展出的其他作品不同，阿籽是少有地描绘了五官，以及眼神望向画面外的人物。她的率真、敏感、迷惘，都向观者一览无余地袒露着。

After the background was painted, Zhang Ping thought long and hard about how she wanted to paint her niece, Azi, who was nine years old at the time, on the sofa. Zi means seed that fall into the earth and grow a new life. Azi's state is very similar to her name. I've watched Azi’s growing up and can feel her state of life and unique emotions. I don't paint strangers much because people can have microscopic details only with personality. Thus, unlike the other works in this exhibition, Azi is one of the rare figures who depicts the five senses, as well as the eyes looking out of the frame. Her honesty, sensitivity and confusion are all revealed to the viewer.

在对阿籽进行画面处理时，张平进行过很多尝试。蓝色的毯子，红色的衣服，总也处理不好。索性盖成白色，还是觉得不对。又洗掉，盖成黑的，再洗掉…层层叠叠…画面最终有种墙皮被剥掉的斑驳感。她喜欢将时间和过往的痕迹放在画面之中，由时间的力量去显示出的厚重感。对艺术家而言，每一个生命的降生都累积了以往时间中的夙缘，在今世与这个世界再次纠缠起来。

Zhang Ping has made many attempts when it comes to the picture treatment of Azi. Whether in blue blanket and red clothes or pure white, Zhang Ping can not feel right. She washed it off again, covered it in black, washed it off again, the image ends up with a mottled look of peeled off siding. She likes to put the traces of time and the past in the picture. The heaviness shown by the power of time reveals in the painting. For the artist, the birth of each life accumulates long-standing ties from previous times, entangling itself with the world again in this world.