老爷一更丨只要你肯画，随便——周心语

我希望我什么都别想，就在屏幕上打打字。写写周心语。

我是去年秋天上海艺博会期间知道周心语的。她那些画很简单，没有背景的人物肖像，做旧，除了不同的蓝色几乎没有其他颜色，就像从画布上突然浮现出来，支楞着，cool，有劲儿。

周心语是学版画的，这让我在谈论她的时候有了一个抓手。我关注版画系和油画系的差别有两年了，不论央美还是国美，我发现版画系出来的学生画画更有实验性，更野，图像性也更强。在读图时代，相比过往强调的绘画性，这是一个显著的优势。我一直在关注央美的苏昱铭、李百舸等，当然还有国美的周心语。他们的造型的简洁硬朗，突如其来倏忽而去，刺客般地突然撞入并占据你整个视野，让你觉得青春就应该是这样的啊！

由此我也接近了版画的精髓，如同鲁迅理解柯勒惠支，版画本质上就是战斗的武器。简洁到近乎粗粝，视觉直给，周心语、苏昱铭们因此得到了挑战这个世界的武器。他们有可能形成一股新势力，在读图时代把版画精髓发挥到另一个高度，就像夏禹在经济失速年代重新定义了坦培拉——艺术永远不会止步，但是创新也不会来自任何一厢情愿的鼓吹，艺术创新只能缘于世道人心和审美的变迁。你只需要把真诚地把自己投入其中……最好你手边还有合适的武器。

嗯……是的，不是传统意义上的油画。这可能有点残酷。

请允许我继续漫无目的地打字。过去一年我一直在关注周心语，发现她也在变化。她的这一期新作，更复杂，人物和场景一遍一遍地叠加上去，依然是怀旧的蓝调，更唯美，但似乎失去了去年那种直抵人心的简单明快。

我在开头说了，我们都不是谋定后动的那种人，我们都只是被一个动机或者情绪驱使着。一篇文章或者一幅画，开始的时候我们并不知道最终会是什么样子。所以，我能理解周心语的意思。酷或者不酷，只是观者的感受，作者无意立一个人设。“老大，装狠很累的。”

周心语这批新作，很多是电影蒙太奇的平面试验——用绘画的方法探索不同时间和记忆的共时性存在。周心语以前制作过动画短片，还在法国入围动画电影节，其实她一直没有放弃制作影片的梦想，只是现阶段还是先画画吧。

 左滑浏览展厅作品 

 Swipe left to view information of the artworks

让我们回到开头，为什么我想写却一直无法下笔。我猜代理画廊对周心语也一样的感觉。这个姑娘，你没法定义她，也不能约束她，你就放手让她做，可能她自己也说不出个计划和目标，但是她绝对能做出些事情来，只要你别对她抱着固有的想象。

比如酷。

其实在我原来的行业，那些年风险投资寻找的，从来不是什么具体的项目，而是人。风险投资本质上是投人，他们觉得你行，随便你做什么都会投，只要你肯做。

同理，只要你肯画。

As Long as You Are Willing to Paint, 

Anything Goes

By Lao Ye Yi Geng

I hope I can think about nothing, just type away on the screen, writing a few words about Zhou Xinyu.

This is actually also Zhou Xinyu’s own habit. When she faces a canvas, she often has no concrete idea in mind; she simply makes the first stroke. Around that beginning, or that initial impulse, the painting gradually grows until it becomes a finished work.

We are alike in this. We cannot stand methodology frameworks, planning, or processes. What drives us is a motive or a mood, which we allow to take shape on a screen or on a canvas. We truly do not know what the outcome will look like.

I have wanted to write about Zhou Xinyu for a month now. Stay in such a condition. I admire her work deeply, and we have spoken, yet I could never decide where to begin. Do you understand that feeling? We are like blank screens or canvases to one another: if you wait for a formal start, it may never come. It is better to set down a single sentence at random, just as Zhou Xinyu paints her first spontaneous stroke.

I first came across Zhou Xinyu at the Shanghai Art Fair last autumn. Her paintings are very simple: portraits without background, distressed in texture, dominated by shades of blue with almost no other colour. They seem to emerge suddenly from the canvas, upright and striking—cool, forceful, full of energy.

Zhou Xinyu trained in printmaking, which gave me a point of entry when speaking about her. For two years, I have been paying attention to the differences between printmaking departments and painting departments, whether at the Central Academy of Fine Arts or the China Academy of Art. I have found that students trained in printmaking often show more experimentation, more wildness, and a stronger sense of imagery. In this image-saturated era, when compared with traditional emphasis on painterly qualities, this becomes a clear advantage. I have long been following Su Yuming, Li Baige, and of course, Zhou Xinyu. Their work is concise and bold, appearing and vanishing abruptly, crashing into and filling your vision like a sudden ambush, making you feel that this is exactly what youth should be.

Through this, I have also come closer to the essence of printmaking. As Lu Xun understood from K?the Kollwitz, printmaking is essentially a weapon of battle. Reduced almost to roughness, visually direct, artists like Zhou Xinyu and Su Yuming have gained a weapon to challenge the world. They may form a new force, bringing the essence of printmaking to a new level in the age of images. Just as Xia Yu redefined tempera in a time of economic stagnation, art never ceases, yet innovation does not arise from wishful thinking. It comes only from shifts in society, human feeling, and taste. You simply have to throw yourself into it sincerely—though it helps if you hold the right weapon in hand.

Yes……it is not oil painting in the traditional sense. That may sound harsh.

Allow me to continue typing aimlessly. Over the past year I have followed Zhou Xinyu closely, and I have seen her change. Her recent works are more complex, with figures and scenes layered over and over again. They remain nostalgic in blue tone, more romantic perhaps, but they lack the simple directness of last year that struck straight at the heart.

I asked her: it seems less cool than before.

She replied that whether cool or not was never her concern. She simply paints according to her state while creating.

As I said at the beginning, we are not the sort of people who carefully plan before taking action. We follow a motive or an emotion. When an article or a painting begins, we do not know how it will turn out. So I understand what Zhou Xinyu means. Coolness or its absence belongs to the viewer; the artist has no intention of establishing such an identity. “Boss, pretending to be tough is exhausting.”

This latest series of works by Zhou Xinyu resembles flat experiments in film montage—an attempt to explore, through painting, the coexistence of different times and memories. Zhou Xinyu once made an animated short film that was shortlisted at a French animation festival, and she has never given up on her dream of making films. For now, however, she paints.

Let us return to the beginning: why I wanted to write yet could not start. I suspect her gallery feels the same. This young woman cannot be defined or constrained. You have to let her be. She may not have a clear plan or goal, perhaps she cannot even say herself, but she will certainly make something happen, provided you do not project fixed expectations onto her.

For example, coolness.

In my former profession, venture capitalists never sought specific projects. They invested in people. Venture capital is essentially about betting on individuals: if they believe in you, they will fund whatever you do, as long as you are willing to do it.

In the same way: as long as you are willing to paint, anything goes.