No Words, Just Paint!

　　An artist's creation is inseparable from his studio. How he is doing in the studio defines his everyday existence, and the accumulation in that space, day after day, year in and year out, makes itself felt, when being looked back, as time. What is time? Time is living. How the artist creates in his studio connects him to the way he lives.

　　Sometimes, during a trip in a new place, one would wander and tread down a new path until it peters out, for no reason than find out what lies beyond. A similar curiosity surfaces often in the studio. Every time you picks up the brush, it is a fresh start, the process of painting comparable to a journey, except that one moves through a journey, tracing linearly a series of fragmented, multiply layered sights, whereas the artist in his studio is static, relying on the unexpected meeting of dotlike, randomly occurred ideas - both modes are characteristic of converged experiences in time and space, of a constant back and forth between looking and thought. The thought-provoking correspondence between the individual and the world, the transforming and re-shaping of what is in/out, subject/object, is all very close to the classic allegory "Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream." It is, however, a simple process that doesn't require much from the outside. It only asks the artist to distance himself from his mundane concerns, and instead to contemplate the change of his canvas in the studio, attentive to his inner needs; and thus react, stay quiet, or wait.

　　Language is superfluous in the act of painting. A painting does not speak; it is an extension beyond verbal expression, or something language cannot quite arrive at. The so-called "language of painting" is only a case of poetic license. What is the "emptying" that is so often spoken of? No more than laying all presuppositions and concerns to rest, putting aside unrelated matters, integrating body and mind, feeling quietly and patiently each detail, its form and characteristics, in order to unify the chaos of reality into an image pure, clear, open to the eye. While doing so, the body and mind engage in an activity always involving selection and judgment which might leave direct marks on the canvas. The work therefore is not only an object to be beheld, but also a concrete illustration of the creative process.

　　The Power of the Accidental

　　The accidental process is a kind of "breaking out." Taking its hints, the artist, under a personal creative state of being, might override what he initially and subjectively conceived as the image. Artists carry a primal dynamic of the human race that plays a particularly important role in artistic creation; what they perceive within needs to be immediately transformed into their works to lead the viewer to complete an experience, which may be personal or may involve complicated social factors. However, "form is no different from emptiness," as the Buddhist sutra says, and artists have to face the creative process of creating something out of nothing. Taoism teaches that nature doesn't rule, and "The only motion is returning." Only by way of "breaking out" can one start to perceive how human and things are connected. The accidental approach to painting is also meant to reveal the nature of things. As a result, the less a painting depends on the identifiable things and phenomena of a particular era, the more it may become a force that influences the specific phenomena of that period, a force that gives the viewer a freedom to interpret and judge the artwork at different levels.

　　A Tradition We Can't Go Back

　　Traditional Taoist thought used to advocate respect for nature and learning from nature. Painters of the Song dynasty (960-1279), by virtue of their insight into the nature of things, elevated landscape painting to unsurmountable heights. The harmony and balance once norished by traditional aesthetic consciousness, after modernism, more specifically after John Cage, has been turned on its head. Not that an anti-harmony prevails, but a new order comes along. It is impossible for us to revisit the past and breathe its very air; the past can only be preserved in our cultural memory, like a shared gene. In the relation between life and art, a sea change has occurred. Today you can participate in artistic creation from many different points of entry and with all kinds of means.  Art is a part of everyday existence and involves a process of time. The genesis and reception of a painting undergoes a similar process. The act of looking contains, by rational and unconscious processes, selection, coordination, and meditative immersion; attention to the material medium and its presentation makes a painting a concrete and realistic metaphor for individual emotional entanglement, a witness to a process in which the medium becomes a vehicle for the imaginative nature of humanity. Authentic painting, in my opinion, is capable of broadening and extending itself toward an unlimited horizon, and the artwork should forever remain incomplete.

　　Seeing Is an Unspeakable Experience

　　The process of seeing is that of a self-discovery, in which a cognitive confusion and a fleeting puzzlement are distilled into a kind of enlightenment. Seeing is the mother of this change.  It may be a meaningless and aimless act, it may just be mythmaking, or a personal experience that originates in the restless, whimsical heart, but nonetheless, seeing emerges from actual circumstances, it is beyond reality, detached from politics, an unspeakable need that feeds on itself by irresistible beholding. Such is the charm of art. Art transcends philosophy and science. It is a visual existence that can manifest through any phenomenon in life as long as people use their sense of sight.

　　Oil Paint and Watercolor

　　Oil on canvas is the medium that I most often employ in the studio. Occasionally, I also let myself go by splashing or smearing watercolor or acrylic paint on paper. Water-based materials flow quickly and dry fast, resulting in watermarks that are formally and texturally distinct from oil-paint, the latter a slower-drying material that allows for repeated painting until the it solidifies thoroughly and yet retains a coherent natural effect. The contrast inspires me and provides me with clues. Many years ago, I came upon an experiment of painting on cardboard with transparent water-based pigments to experience the temporality of painting. Different materials produce a variety of abstract forms in the process of painting, reminiscent of disparate perceptions of time. Such a discordance is highly expressive and is able to create an extraordinarily atmospheric picture. As an approach to the essence of things, painting is as vigorous as ever.

　　Live with Painting

　　Be sincere with yourself and insist on being sincere at every moment you paint. What you are and what you want will be conveyed to others through the canvas, which never deceives. A painting, from its unconscious conception until having made a definite something out of nothing, has to engage an individual soul in recognizing and fusing with the physical world outside of him. Such an exchange between human and things knows no limit, an interplay that always delights me. The artist's attention is both detail-specific and holistic, able to release energy and take shape at the same time. Hence the natural formation of a painting-it may be all or nothing. This process is an adventure in which I see, I think, and I paint on and on… Painting carries life, it and I live with it everywhere, at any hour, growing together.

Lianghong Feng

July 25, 2019