Artists' Talk

－Jingyi Huang&Yifang Zheng

Huang: why don't you want to talk about your own works and don't like to express them to others?

Yifang: because I don't want to tell others what I want to express by speaking. I am very stubborn and persistent. I just want others to see it directly from the paintings.

Huang: it's very normal. So am I. I told them about my work Nirvana that day.

Yifang: but I find that symbols and languages are really complicated. If you want more people to understand your works, you have to work out a language that can be understood. Then maybe my language is still too close to my personal experience at present. This is subjective, so only a few people may get my point, but it may still be felt by many people No more.

Huang: do you think your art is for most people or a few people?

Yifang: I hope it can reach more and more people, because I want to influence more and more people.

Huang: but you still think that only a few people can understand it.

Yifang: right.

Huang: do you want to help them understand or change your own painting language in the past?

Yifang: it's not simply to change my language. I can only say to continue to explore. They all seem to think that my still life series makes them feel something more easily.

Huang: everyone is different, I think.

Yifang: but I think it can be done at present. I don't want to pursue the perfection of a certain series. I can draw a vase, a reed, other things, and more different series. When others see my exhibition, these things are all in it. They may not be able to feel the things in one series, but they can feel them in other series.

Huang: don't you think it's a failure of your painting language to express clearly what you want to express with a painting?

Yifang: but this is the current situation. It doesn't mean that I will always be at this stage. I can do it horizontally and vertically.

Huang: what do you mean horizontal and vertical?

Yifang: I think the horizontal direction here refers to a more in-depth study of the language of creation at that time. The vertical direction is to continue to explore new languages. At present, I still focus on the body. I don't know when I will change.

Huang: do you think you have any progress from your graduation work, the Island, to the later paintings, or do you have any differences in your search direction? Why did you change from "island" to "still life", or something else? Do you have anything more you want to express?

Yifang: the creation of the island originated from my thinking when I was a child bathing. What I draw now is more close to the things in daily life. At first, I wanted to draw the things that all people can touch in their lives. It's human's, whether internal or external, or material or spiritual, and it's a fundamental thing of human's commonness. So I chose everyone All have limbs, as well as the sea, which symbolizes the origin of life and civilization.

But with the discussion of my works with people, I began to draw something more everyday, such as glass table and vase, in order to make people understand my paintings. Indeed, for people around me, it's easier to understand, but looking back, it seems to deviate from the original intention. Are these things I'm painting really the daily life of all human beings? I don't think so. I draw these because I think people will unconsciously lose their mind all the time and enter a state of thinking about themselves. I want to reappear that state in the picture. You may look at a vase and think about it. For example, when people see themselves in the reflection, they are likely to start thinking about themselves. Because people seldom see themselves at ordinary times. Once they see their reflection, they must go back and look at themselves carefully, and then they are likely to fall into some meditation.

Huang: so you are just expressing a state of your mind, that state of your mind at that time, rather than the thought-provoking moral of "island"?

Yifang: its moral meaning is actually the same as that of the island. It just means that I pull audiences back from a very empty and completely imaginary world, and connect them with the reality, just like having practical thinking before metaphysical thinking. I think "island" is more metaphysical, just starting from a body--even the painting is no longer the actual body--to think about some philosophical issues, but there are real tea tables and bottles in these paintings. I think I may first see the effect of this series, and then I will decide my next step. In addition to this, I may add the newly created image in my imaginary space.

Huang: which image?

Yifang: the person whose gender is unknown, because he himself represents a kind of my concept, gender difference represents a kind of social definition, a kind of shackle. I blur the gender difference of this image, which means that I oppose and ignore the definitions given by the society, which are imposed on people, and it may not conform to human nature.

The society prescribes what men want, and women want,but what are their qualifications. And these are also related to my own life experience. I may think deeply. Maybe a man and a woman who are very masculine will not think about these things. If these people are male or feminist, they may be more extreme. But people who are born more neutral like me may have different ideas.

Huang: why do you say you are a neutral person?

Yifang: I was called a girl when I was young.

Huang: but that's just the definition of you. That doesn't mean you are such a person in your own cognition.

Yifang: I also have some neutral characteristics. I don't think like the so-called straight men defined by the society. I don't have the characteristics that men in a broad sense should have, such as the strong and powerful, or the macho ideology. Physically speaking, I am a man, but I am not the kind of man defined by the old society. My view of gender has also been influenced by a lot of society since I was a child, because my face is beautiful, like a girl, and my body is thin and small. No matter what I do, many students in my class say that I am womanish. They think that no matter what I do, but in fact, my behavior, interest and hobbies are the same as ordinary boys, and I am not afraid of anything, and I am not afraid of courage. When I was a child, when I was wronged and wronged, and I couldn't explain clearly, I loved to cry, but people around me took this kind of thing with the sissy, saying that men are not like this, but boys can't cry?Who stipulated it? I don't believe the so-called men who laugh at my crying ghosts that don't cry? They do cry when their father hit them. So these gender concepts actually represent some biased and narrow definitions of the society. These definitions are not true and cannot be said to be correct. They cannot generalize a gender or an individual. So when you want to really see yourself, you have to remove these definitions from your mind.

Huang: do you have any connection with these series, how they have changed, and why do you create such an image?

Yifang: I think it's good to add such an image in the painting. It can bring some stories and details, and it can also serve as a guide to understand my work. This work island seems to drag people into my consciousness space. My imagination space, I don't tell the audience anything. They can only get lost in it aimlessly. When I add this image, he may become a guide. He has represented one of my ideas. In the future, my paintings have become a series. Those who have known my works will know what I want to say as soon as they see this image. Of course, I don't know how people who don't know my work will feel when they see it, so I still ask others.

Huang: what are you going to do?

Yifang: introspection, expression of some of my thinking, I want to create an environment that makes people feel that there is no good or bad, right or wrong, no constraint, and free thinking environment. But the more I want to get rid of the definition, the more difficult I will find it. When you want to get rid of these ideas too much, it means that you are still thinking about them. They still deeply affect yourself. When I try to express the feeling that there is no definition and no boundary, maybe I am also giving you a new definition to frame you. At this time, it will be a situation of putting the cart before the horse, leading to my deviation. But not to do so would be like "island" to confuse everyone. I think now many people are facing these problems and want to make more people understand their own language

Yifang: now many contemporary artists are very opportunistic. They write directly on the paintings, or write all they want to express in the title of the paintings. In this way, it will be easy for us to understand to express directly in words.

Huang: Yes, but sometimes I think it's the power of words, not the power of painting itself.

Yifang: we have heard many songs that are very touching, but why some songs are touching is because of the lyrics, not the music itself.

Huang: Although there are no restrictions on art, you can do whatever you want, but I don't know whether using the power of words like this is a kind of cheating, but there is no cheating.

Yifang: indeed, if there is such a rule, it will change back to the stubborn academic art of the past.

Huang: but I sometimes think that now art is becoming more and more conceptual. One day when the concept reaches its limit, we can express it without images or works of art. Even then, the word "artist" will become an empty word. The word "artist" can be completely replaced by teachers and writers. Art has the function of education and communication These functions can be replaced by writers, teachers and other professions.

Yifang: I think many artists are just like translators of philosophers. They express one philosophical problem, philosophical thought, in another way, rather than writing a thick philosophical book. But in fact, this extreme phenomenon happened in modern times and did not reach that situation. Some people do ideas, some people still do painting, which is more single Pure art.

Huang: but I don't know whether it's going forward or backward. I don't know what it will become in the future.

Yifang: I think it's like a river flowing into the sea, a radical wave, a radical thought, rushing out, to the sea, starting to spread, with more directions, so now there are more and more art forms. I think it's more appropriate to use the sea as an example than to use trees, because the sea is flat, and now the art is more like flat and calm, at present The world will not be as turbulent as before. Different arts can coexist well, but these are still limited to the art circle. There is no mainstream. To be honest, there is no mainstream. You can see what mainstream contemporary artists do now. Although there are few painters, there are painters, right. I feel that there are more contemporary artists doing painting in China.

Huang: there are a lot of other things abroad, too many.

Yifang: before, I thought that Chinese art is not as advanced as foreign avant-garde. But now, it seems that the world is the same. No one is more advanced. No one is more advanced now. Now all the rivers are flowing into the sea. All people are equal, because no one can stand out in this era. In this era, no one can lead like Picasso. How can it stand out? What you do is done by others. So this is not a time to be outstanding. Because sometimes, like when you are in trouble, you don't want to solve the problem, you just want to change. Maybe what we think now is not that I want to highlight or to lead an era, we may just do what we should do now.