艾敬，这个熟悉的名字，近来以一种新的角色和身份重新回到我们的视线中。曾经在音乐的世界里尽情游走，而今她又执起画笔，在浸润着自我情感与人文关爱的绘画艺术中诗意地生活，怡然自得地穿梭在多种艺术形式中。这不禁使人联想到同为民谣歌手的琼尼•米歇尔(Joni Mitchell)，她不仅在音乐领域上频频受到格莱美的嘉奖，同时也是一位颇有成就的视觉艺术家和词曲作家，她通过摄影和绘画，创作了自己每张专辑的图像。无独有偶，而今的艾敬也成为这样一位身兼音乐人、画家、作家等跨界艺术家。从曾经的音乐到现在的绘画，再到今后可能的任何其他形式，艾敬正试图用不同的艺术媒介来表达自己的情感和艺术理念。她用作品向我们传达这样一个讯息：她是一位真正的艺术家，一位在当今现实社会中仍不遗余力地去探索未知、表达情感、传递关爱的多元艺术家。

　　艾敬作为音乐人，画家，作家，诗人，这种多元艺术家的身份，即在多种不同的艺术形式中都有所成就，在国外艺术家中是相当普遍的。如鲍勃•迪伦(Bob Dylan)、安迪•沃霍尔(Andy Warhol)、约翰•列侬(John Lennon)、大野洋子等等，他们在音乐、绘画、写作、摄影等艺术领域中都颇有研究，对后来的艺术发展和艺术家成长也起到了至关重要的作用。艺术家身份的多元化不仅是西方美术史呈现出的一种趋势，同时也是后现代艺术所坚持的一种信仰。而在中国，长久以来对艺人的偏见依然固执的存在着，还有许多人认为艺术就是“阳春白雪，和者盖寡”。但我深信，这些陈旧鄙陋的观念将会被不断前进的时代所抛弃，而像艾敬这样站在时代和艺术界前沿的真正的艺术家会逐渐受到国人、甚至全世界的更多关注，我们将走向一个艺术家被重新定义和审视的时代。

　　爱，是生活和艺术永恒的主题。艾敬的作品以“Love”为主题无疑是个明智的选择。也许正是由于“爱”对大众和艺术家们的深远影响，许多艺术家的创造都围绕着这一主题展开，其中就包括在全世界不少城市都能见到波普艺术大师罗伯特•印第安那(Robert Indiana)的Love系列雕塑作品，“爱”的魅力由此可见一斑。

　　然而，艾敬的“Love”系列作品却拥有其独特之处，这不仅表现在她使音乐与绘画两种艺术形式相互渗透，运用艺术的精神本质来创作，同时作品本身所表达的情感和对社会的高度关注，也是当代艺术中极其可贵的人文视角。她凭借对音乐的深刻理解逐渐参悟出绘画艺术的精髓，在她的作品中，“爱”不仅仅局限于狭义的男女之爱，而是放宽眼界，看到了更丰富的意义，借此也透过作品让观者也能静心思考“爱”对于生命和生活的意义。

　　也许有些观众会对她的作品提出反驳，认为无法理解抑或是过于简单。然而艾敬艺术作品的精妙不在于构图，而是在于强烈的色彩以及所传达内容。她大胆采用自己调配的色彩，加之机械排列、重复和强调，制造出一种强大的视觉冲击力。这种勇于对色彩进行大胆突破和尝试的，在我国当代艺术家中确实不多，而艾敬却做到了。更重要的是，艾敬的作品中寄托着她最真挚的情感，传递着她对亲人、对社会、对生态的关爱，她把自己的“爱”通过艺术的形式表现出来，从而去创造更多“爱”，让观众感受到作品背后所蕴藏的艺术震慑人心的力量，引发人们去真切地思考生命中的“爱”和价值。

　　在后现代艺术中，绘画的过程以及其所承载的意义已经超越了绘画本身。看上去简单的画作，其实笔笔都是画者的心意，字字皆是画者的深情。诚然，艺术家最终需要做得正是对人类社会有所贡献的作品，而艾敬的作品和成长也正朝着这一方向发展。

　　周大为，出生于中国上海,他毕业于英属哥伦比亚大学，主修艺术史与国际关系并获得学士学位。2006年，周大為与华雨舟合作，成为上海华氏画廊的艺术总监。周大為推出了一系列展览如：2007年中国抽象主义运动，2008年草间弥生版画展。使华氏画廊被国内权威艺术杂志《HI艺术》评为国内顶级20家画廊和上海三大画廊之一。

　　Ai Jing，a name we were familiar with, lately came back into our eyesight with her new role and identity. She used to roaming around the world of music，and now she is picking up the painting brush, living the poetic life full of sentiment and loving humanism, wondering through various forms of art . This reminds me of the other balladeer Joni Mitchell who is a Grammy winner as well as a prominent visual artist and successful composer. Mitchell has done all the photo shooting and painting for every cover of her albums. It’s not a unique instance. Ai Jing now has become such a versatile artist of music, painting and writing. From music to painting, to any other possible art form she would try in the future, Ai Jing is trying to present her feelings and art believes. She is conveying a message with her works to us: she is a real artist, an artist with many levels who does not quit exploring unknown, unveiling emotion and expressing love in such a realistic world of nowadays.

　　With multi-roles of musician, painter and poet, Ai Jing has been accomplished in varieties of art forms, though this is a quite usual occurrence among foreign artists, for instance, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the like who without exception have achieved success in many fields of music, painting, writing and photography and significantly contributed to the shape of art history and young artists. Diversification is not just a tendency of western art history, but also a religion of post-modern art. However, in China, people’s prejudice for entertainers still persistently exists, while most of the people still think art is highbrow and caviar to the general. Nevertheless, I truly believe that these old shallow opinion will sooner pr later tossed away by ongoing times, and true artist like Ai Jing who always stands at front of times and art will become the future star in China and the world. We are walking up to a time when artists will be redefined.

　　Love is the eternal theme of life and art. It is an advisable for Ai Jing to choose “love” as the theme of her works. It is possibly the profound influence of love in people and artists that many artists have chosen it as their themes; including Pop Art master Robert Indiana’s Love Series of sculptures which can be seen in many cities around the world. That’s the fascination of love.

　　However, Ai Jing’s Love series of works get their own special features. She indites with the spiritual essence of art; she makes music and painting infiltrate into each other; meanwhile, seeing from her attention for society and the sensibility of her works, she has admirable humanism angles of view for modern art. By right of her understanding for music, she gets the soul of painting art. In her works, “love” is not constrained as the love of man and woman. It has more definitions and more width of horizon. Through her paintings, the viewers would be able to get to the stillness of heart and reflect on the meaning of life and existence.

　　Maybe some of the viewers will consider her work hard to understand or too simple. Nevertheless, the excellence of Ai Jing is not about the composition, but the strong colors and the message they express. She uses the color she prepares her own and put them together as mechanic arrangement, repetition or highlight which produces powerful visual wallop. There are not so many artists in contemporary China who dare to try boldly in colors. Ai Jing made it. More importantly, she expresses her most sincerely love and caring through her works to her family, to the society and the environment. She conveys “love” through art in order to inspire more love from the viewers by impress them with the overwhelming power of art and make them reflect on the love and values in their own lives.

　　In post-modern art, the process of painting and the meaning it carries have become more important than the painting itself. A picture may look simple, but every brush of it is the painter’s soul and love. Indeed, the final destination of artist is to contribute to human society, and that is what Ai Jing’s doing presently.

　　David Chau was born in Shanghai,he graduated with a B.A degree from University of British Columbia in Art History and International Relations.In 2006, David Chau partnered with Hua Yuzhou and becoming the CEO and Director of Hwas Gallery in Shanghai. Chau launched several major exhibitions, among which included The Chinese Abstract Movement in 2007, and Yayoi Kusama Prints in 2008. Hwas Gallery was recognized by the prestigious art magazine Hi Art as one of the top 20 galleries in China and among the top three in Shanghai.