EXHIBITION SYNOPSIS

In a loose yet concentrated way, this exhibition aims to explore a broad concept -“PAINTING INTERFACE”- which lies behind the contemporary Chinese painting scene. The computer term INTERFACE, meaning a shared boundary connecting two bodies, refers to a computer system that shares boundaries and spans two or more separate components to exchange information, in the field of computer science. Etymologically, INTERFACE means between-faces and later extends its meaning to the context of different systems and internal communication. When INTERFACE is used in the interpretation of painting methods, it implies that the “depicting” process by a painter is accomplished by capturing, appropriating, infiltrating, overlapping, interweaving, blending and mixing images/information. By using INTERFACE as a metaphor, this exhibition explores the possibilities of dynamic painting.

In recent years, Chinese contemporary painting presents an unstoppable new trend. The practices of painters have deviated from the cornerstone of the established institutional system and away from the narrative of realism. Their angles of view have undergone a subtle shift as they are more willing to pay attention to the micro world, that is, to dismantle, to cut, to aggregate, to compound and to present the fragments, segments, the partial, non-continuous images/objects, aiming to get rid of the constraints of the linear logic of painting, and to achieve liberation of painting itself. In addition to continuing attention to the painting lineage as always, the artists have been seeking paths of individual expression, subjectively abandoning disciplines, breaking through the “collective unconsciousness” of thinking collectively, focusing on individual expression, and searching for non-linear new painting approaches in chaos or disorder. Today’s conventional sketching is not the only way for obtaining painting images/information, as for today’s artists, it does not meet the needs and uses of image/information anymore. Painters have already changed their perspectives when facing images/figures/objects, changing from one on one (painter facing landscape/object) to one on infinity (painter facing endless image/information from the Internet).

Therefore, the advanced Internet and digital technology have become a new platform for artists to acquire and process images/information. They have also changed the artist's worldview and painting style. Through this cosmic window, the artist's vision can reach a vast and infinite world. Their works constantly improve the self-referential function of painting. By removing the context and narrative attached to the image, the narrative image and the language pattern are deconstructed and the simplicity and purity of the painting form and language are constructed. Whether their works are abstract or expressive, rational or emotional, they all represent a bizarre landscape of their re-creation - painters cut off the visual connection with the narrative, so as to present a state in which there is no sense of place, no sense of belonging, no sense of orientation, and no sense of identity. Nevertheless, such a unique form allows people to not only recognize spirituality, sense of existence, as well as the physical instinct, but also the purity of the form of painting. This not only declares the artist's subjective consciousness,but also emphasizes the return of painting to the painting language itself. Under such a loose and free premise, this exhibition does not set a closed and specific theme for theartists,but fully demonstrates their multi-dimensional performances. Meanwhile, the exhibition aims to get rid of the stylistic and sociological classification that is rigid and narrow,but to examine the state of contemporary Chinese painting from an open and free perspective. In terms of expression methods, the five young painters Ma Ke, Liu Zhengyong, Lu Song, Qian Jiahua and Dong Dawei have fully demonstrated their flexibility, nature, and freedom, reflecting their will and ambition to break through the boundaries of painting.

As a well-known term, INTERFACE, in addition to its meaning of connection and interaction, also refers to an effective way for artists to obtain images/information on a computer. Technology also conforms to the artist's creative method. The almost simultaneous transmission of Internet-based explosive information in time, space and speed constantly changes the cognitive dimension of people, and the constantly spilling images/information drift freely over the network map. This multidimensional shared interface goes beyond the boundaries of ideology or nations. Such a reality is as described by Paul Virilio as "end of geography". It is replacing the theory of "end of history" proposed by Francis Fukuyama. Today, driven by the rapid development of high technology, we have stepped into a world portrayed by Paul Virilio, that is, "We are entering a world there won't be one, but two realities: the actual and virtual. There is no simulation, but substitution”.

Indeed, this world is in a state of uncertainty and unpredictability, as the transformation of new technologies is constantly changing every aspect of the human cognition. The new technology has the effect of a double-edged sword. Even if the channels for obtaining images/information are limited or blocked by varying degrees, artists still get resources by crossing the firewall with VPN. Faced with such rich, complex and diverse image resources, artists filter and select the images/information they need through computers, the Internet or mobile platforms (websites, social platforms, self-media platforms, etc.) directly by themselves. It creates a "reality" that is filtered and edited by man. It is multivariate, multidimensional and plural, not monotonous, singular and simple.

This variable and uncertain multi-dimensional interface is seen as the connection of the artist to another vast real world. Although the images/information transmitted by the interface are continuously absorbed, it still depends on the final process of the artist's imagination and expressiveness. They use their unique methods to disassemble, reorganize, assemble, and blend images/information to highlight the productivity of their images.Obviously, we have to face the truth that globalization and localization have interacted and formed a new kind of“Scape of Glocalization”. It is a dynamic scape that changes constantly, as the main topic of global interaction is focused on reflecting the tension of the alienation between different cultures. Just as Arjun Appadurai mentioned in the book “Modernity ad Large, Cultural Dimension of Globalization”, the drifting of global culture is composed by five elements: Ethnic landscape, media landscape, technical landscape, financial landscape and ideological landscape. From this perspective, such a brand-new interface is regarded by the artist as a nomadic drifting cultural feature, which infiltrates and impacts the boundaries of his or her own culture, yet blends and changes the new cultural form. It can be said that the artist can now construct the sixth level of the landscape based on the previous five, namely the “Artscape”. This expanding contemporary art is constructing a new cultural order and a new artistic landscape. Therefore, this phenomenon is called “trans-experience” which implies the interaction of different cultures, societies and languages.

Their contradictory overlapping and infiltration directly or indirectly affect the changing of the individual's own thinking and dimension. This kind of mutual influence produces a different kind of subjectivity, a spiritual subject that is neither the other nor the absolute self. This alienated subject has both absorption and resistance, union and separation, fusion and transcendence. The artist clearly reflects the cultural characteristics of this “trans-experience”. Faced with such dynamic and complex cultural phenomena, they inevitably make different responses and practices. However, for the artist, this does not mean accepting and following blindly, but a process of extraction and transformation. This fully reflects the artist's subjective consciousness, which measures individual cognition, judgment, attitude, method, imagination and performance. Ultimately, all these show individual character and spirituality in creation. This is the key point of the new alternative painting language.

As we can see, the five artists constantly integrate knowledge and individuality growth in their creations,and incorporate new techniques and new ways of thinking into their creations. They have a sense of "Spiritual Runaway", as they directly abandoning the critical narrative, and instead got passioned on the fragmentation of images/information, micro-life and heterogeneity. Therefore, through the interspersed arrangement of different works in the space of the exhibition area, the exhibition not only expresses the multiplicity of a new narrative and cross-connections,but also reflects a polyphonic or cross-over function. It is in this way that the exhibition allows the paintings to meet and dialogue with each other, showing not only the intention of the new painting to break through the dominant voice of the linearity of painting,but also the possibility of a new language of painting.

In the process of creation, these five painters undoubtedly strengthen and release new opposition of information, through the dismantling and aggregation of images: the opposition between the collective and the individual, between the image and the reality of life, between the initiative and the passive, between the self-owned and alienation. Ma Ke’s paintings have a special language,as he pursuits the non-contextualized, absurd and strange scenes, and even presents some forms of incompleteness. Ma firmly grasps the whole and the partial of the painting, the relationship between the layout and the form, cleverly grasping the dynamic line, the texture of the brushstroke, as well as the density and the flexible relationship of lightness and heaviness through interweaving large-scale colour gamuts. He subjectively deforms or exaggerates the expressive image/object, processes the character/object into a humorous and dramatic image ingeniously, not only depicting the instability and free state of the character/object,but also reproducing the physical sense of existence of the person or object itself. This ambiguous image, which is difficult to distinguish or define, just metaphorically reflects the living conditions and spiritual state of today's human beings.

Liu Zhengyong's works highlight the praise of the body's instinct and the perception of the body with the thickness and strength of expressive colours- the connection between light and darkness, consciousness and body, emotion and energy. Dong Dawei creates abstract paintings based on space; he intervenes or intervenes in space, and regards the painting medium as an interface that connects with the surrounding space, in order to create connections between the installation/painting - human - space. Lu Song's paintings redraw vague and incomplete objects through literary refinement, through the collection of non-logical images of fragments and segments, suggesting the uncertainty and the erratic world. This collection or mixture of surreal natural landscape and microscopic daily landscape have spawned new painting poetry in a fuzzy chaos. Qian Jiahua's abstract painting enhances the simplicity and purity of her language by extracting image fragments and opposing them in her paintings.

In the process of creation, these five painters undoubtedly strengthen and release new opposition of information, through the dismantling and aggregation of images: the opposition between the collective and the individual, between the image and the reality of life, between the initiative and the passive, between the self-owned and alienation. Ma Ke's paintings have a special language,as he pursuits the non-contextualized, absurd and strange scenes, and even presents some form of incompleteness. Liu Zhengyong's works highlight the praise of the body's instinct and the perception of the body with the thickness and strength of expressive colours- the connection between light and darkness, consciousness and body, emotion and energy.

Dong Dawei creates abstract paintings based on space, intervenes or intervenes in space, and regards the painting medium as an interface with space to make the device/paint-person-space form a connection. Lu Song's paintings redraw the vague and incomplete objects of the picture through literary refinement, through the collection of non-logical images of fragments and fragments, suggesting the uncertainty and the erratic world, this collection or mixed super The realistic natural landscape and the microscopic daily landscape have spawned new painting poetry in the fuzzy chaos. Qian Jiahua's abstract painting enhances the simplicity and purity of her language by extracting image fragments and opposing them. All in all, in the works of these five painters, their spiritual character and free will are revealed. Some works emphasize a mixture of expressive “trans-experience”. Some works highlight the meaning of artistic ontology, some works reflect life consciousness, some works highlight the perception of imagination, and so on. Such diverse visual forms lead us to think, to experience, and to identify the critical point of painting generated by the complicated relationships between ourselves and others, boundaries and the unbounded, fragmentation and integrity, finiteness and infinity, appropriation and regeneration, images and objects, reality and imagination, senses and reason, coding and decoding, as well as the mundane and the transcendental.

Therefore, although it is a group exhibition of five painters, it extends from the main body of painting to a thought-provoking topic, which uncovers some hidden things in practice. In this way, the exhibition delineates the new painting dimension, that is, the transition from one-dimensionality to multi-dimensionality, which is the transformation of fragmented images into its reformulation. In the creation of the five painters, they tried to avoid the appearance of stereotypes and clichés. Instead, they sought the verbal identity of the painting itself through an open and free expression. They used dynamic painting to bring together image generation, abstraction and space writing, body narrative, etc., thus weaving a new type of painting text - microscopic confront macro, fragmentation against integrity, and difference against identity. Confrontation/narrative with abstraction/fuzziness. This is the new change in Chinese contemporary painting in terms of concept, language and form.

2018.10.28 Sunday at Wangjing, Beijing