KEEP WATCHING THROUGH DEATH - ABOUT JIANG HUAJUN’S ART WORKS

Jiang Huajun’s works is a little bit anachronistic with the popular so-called contemporary art nowadays. Because his works went without fashionable, superficial and stimulative effect formed by desired creation, without full-spread overruns of post-colonial words and even without connivance and catering for western aesthetic sentiment. His creations much more embody the perplexity and desirability of non-utilitarian survival in the cockles of his heart, which means his creation is a way in allusion to the survival pressure and defect in reality. In other words, he just chooses this way to express his feelings and experiences towards world, because he has known some issues which deserves and must be revealed, such as the unprecedented swell of substance desire, the lose of humanity spirit and the anomie of different kinds of values led by social conversion, especially his contradiction and loneliness among these as well as the non-habitual anxiety about spirit drift. However, his creations show different kinds of tribulations in this spiritual perplexed era, meanwhile, express his misery of spiritual relics as well as the quest and salvage of new survival state of human kind.

Jiang Huajun’s works use an immediacy of figurative realism to make inquires on existent situations of human spirit, feel the suffering of life desire encountered in the social horizon. From his work “Drifting•Floating” painted in the year of 2007 and 2008, we can see a boy, who is delineated so sensitive, weak and contains a non-understanding loneliness, stares at this world quietly without love and warmth when he is facing the industrialized large-scale machinery devices, or sitting at the concrete space, or facing stream and cloud, or drifting in the water. Actually, if we saw it from the aspect of psychology, we could see this boy is not only the window who observed the world by artist, but also his real portrayal life. That also reflects his mourn for tribulations when he was young. Because his ability to afford this suffering and the way through the survival appearance in some degree cater for thinking and penalty spirit, also is a kind of unwilling struggle which artist faces the absurd reality.

Camus said: “Absurd people see a burning and cold world indistinctly upon that. In this world, not everything is possible, but fixed. When you go over it, you would find collapse and nihility. Absurd people can decide to live in that kind of world, and then gain his own power and obtain the denial towards hope as well as the persistent evidence of life without consolation.” (See “Myth of Sisyphus”, P74, Beijing, Sanlian Bookstore, 1987)

Jiang Huajun shows secular society’s indifference to life itself by the right of this and emphasizes on “facing” as well as the potential meaning to each life. Therefore, the boy is not only a view point, but also an artistic figure to disclose the absurdity of existence. When he opens the suffering scene in the reality, his own suffering also shows people’s solicitude. For aught I know, he knows people is a social being, also an existence of life, the imbroglio between groups and individuals is a huge perplexity in life. He also knows the struggle between intellect and sensibility is a tragedy difficult to attemper forever. But his courage exists in: he faces this misfortune directly and never goes away and avoid from the hardships and tribulations of human natures. Conversely, he uses the stance of traditional human spirit to survey and feel the hardships and the grave and hopeless of tribulations. He doesn’t attempt to search for the compensation of aphasia in the reality, but to exhibit the survival status of human beings in the field of deconstruction of reality and then corroborate the attention and cognizance of the creative body to self-existence. In this essential contemplation to life existence, first of all, he targets the taste goal at the individual existence. This common and humble life that produces happiness and tribulation continuously is the proof of self-existence. Jiang Huajun’s endless causalgia towards existent reality soaks in numbness, vulgarity and ignorance. Meanwhile, he also uses intuitionistic scene to show a bitter life and the power of intrinsic life symbolically.

Jiang Huajun makes efforts on showing the sick lives as a group by combined figures of animals, in comparison to all kinds of suffering interpreted by instinctive desire. Animals often accompanied with poor living environments, looking at everything in reality with numb eyes, standing or walking aimlessly on the scene set by Jiang Huajun. The living way with diluted human spiritual dimension and human dignity decomposes the value of civilization, strengthening the animality of human to a new level in anthropomorphic way. In other words, they expand the human desire for material. It is a living pursuit in representation, but abandoning heart and ignoring people’s spiritual solicitude, which provides a broad mental space for the performance of human desire without any shelter. Jiang Huajun could face this bitter realities of life, just because he attempts “to self decode to this encountered world and era through the keyhole of ‘personal existence’” (see the catalogue of “the Fourth A+A” on page 102, published by PIFO New Art Gallery). It is an oppugnation of psychopathic personality injected by modern society, not only representing the physical defects, but also a kind of monstrosity in spirit. Such as the animal images, props and scenery which spy on the reality as well as the sprat with suspicion sitting on the ruins in “Century Park” (2009); grinning mouth of big crocodile in “Afternoon” (2008)……These indicate, in the context depth, artist’s abomination to the vulgar and sterile living prospect. They dissipate people’s creativity and volition and deplete the courage of struggle as well as making the healthy personality become beggarly and pale. Obviously, it is not Jiang Huajun’s trick to stimulate people's visual, but an extrasensory exploration of sick life. Here, despite the image emphasizes its external shape, but the intrinsic disease of character and living absurdity are self-evident. The reason why he focuses on creating pathological characters and sometimes even deliberately eliminates moderation and kindness which should be existed in reality, only evil and ugliness are left in the works is not from a despair mood actually. Although some expressions of atmosphere are dark and confused, and characters are also filled with a physical impulse, but they ultimately reflect the deep calls and ultimate concern of the artist to the spiritual noumena. Perhaps his intension is to remind people what issue is to maintain the value of human existence, and what issue is insignificant through exposure of inverse. We often say that pioneer is not just on the behalf of avant-courier of artistic noumenon, but emphasis more on standing in front of the times in spirit. Pioneer is not artistic, but in the position of spirit. They nominate existence with courage in the conflict of existence. Their works reflect artist’s solicitude to human living prospect in facing misery and misfortune directly, and attempt to get close to the human essence. Jiang Huajun clings to depict living suffering with multi-dimensional presentations of psychopathic personality in aesthetical ideal deep in the art. This precisely reflects his vanward quality and essential artistic conscience as well as the artist's ethics and watch.

Jiang Huajun stares at life pathetique directly, not in order to get rid of artist’s self-set pressure by suffering. He has a transcendent attitude to the modern living situation. However, he doesn’t betray realistic grief. On the contrary, he is immersed in realistic suffering, exploring the internal nature of human with active spirit and self-endurance ability like a religion follower. When he gets in touch with the pain of noumenon, he doesn’t forget his mission and responsibility in the desperate atmosphere in addition to helplessness and compassion. He takes great efforts to find a way to convert existence. Some of his works always reveals the self rescue rule of suffering. I suppose this rule is presented by a series of single or multi skulls. Tender hearts may not be able to find a comfortable spirit home here. So he chooses an ideal transcendent gesture——death. Although this is an ultimate relief, Jiang Huajun endows it with a poetic process, with rescue and peripateticism after experiencing a heart suffering. Suffering helps they go to disengagement successfully. Actually, they know death is not the best rescue method in their heart. If human beings could only rescue themselves by death, existence should be meaningless, either spirit or body shall be a superficial appearance. However, he is also reluctant to let every soul has a temporary resettlement. The obsession to eternity and immortality prompts him to keep thinking the way of self rescue, but he can not get it after a long-time thinking. So he has to choose death as the existence of getting rid of overburdened pressure in severe pain. So we not only see the pile of skull to complete the final rituals of life, but also airslaked skull, even bloody traces. This not only shows the tremendous power of suffering, but also shows artist’s disappointment and pain after realizing the nature of life. This is actually the result of self-flagellation of responsibility and artistic conscience. By passing through the dead zone time and time again by painting, Jiang Huajun shows his ultimate cry to the abyss of human suffering on the power of art conscience. Thus, for death, he never makes any form of deconstruction. Of course, it does not mean that only death greets pain and evil in Jiang Huajun’s psychology of creation, he helps the viewer be aware of their misfortune, meanwhile also provides a positive means of relief. This rescue is not a relief of living hardship, but rather a positive commitment and capacity, and this commitment is an effective way to save humanity. His schema is an attempt to rebuild his own sentiments in fact in order to help the incrementally confused modern people to stand straight up.

From the analysis above, it is easy for us to find why Jiang Huajun deserves to draw attention, because there is not mimic and imitation in his vision. He doesn’t dismantle the history extensively like some artists nowadays who exile their spirits in twiddling envision. He isn’t inebriated in the symbols of traditional culture and red classics. Furthermore, he doesn’t follow the diluted occult works from modern theory. He keeps investigating the bewilderment of human existence in the consumption era, in confronting the trend in which human minds have generally excluded deep mode. Therefore, Jiang Huajun’s works are aimed at human existence and project himself on this spiritual level in order to achieve the essential power of human as a human being. It is an artistic behavior without any technology and shortcut, also an art approach with the return of Humanism. It indicates the value and significance of Jiang Huajun’s Art Works in the way of thinking which pays attention to human beings.