生于四川成都的李节平老师，先后在四川美术学院和解放军艺术学院油画专业学习与进修，长期的专业训练和对事物的观察写生，让他常常将创作的关注点集中在现实生活和人民身上。忠于人民、贴近生活一直是他对艺术创作的态度和立场，这就让更为质朴的广袤大地以及生活在此的万千百姓进入他的画面当中。作为一个历史悠久的农业大国，我国在历史的进程中较早地进入农耕时期，农业文明伴随着黎民百姓走过千年历史，成为历朝历代人民的立国之本。中华人民共和国成立后，农业依然作为国家发展的重中之重，与之相关的农民、农村等方方面面不仅是国家一直面对的关键问题，中国广阔的乡土自然也成为文艺创作者们重要的灵感来源。“新农村，新风貌”，在李节平的画面中，我们仿佛能够看到中华五千年农耕文明下勤勤恳恳的广大农民百姓，他们质朴而天然的品性与大地合二为一，乡土题材的创作亦成为中华文化和当代画坛一股不可忽略的重要力量。

　　作为改革开放的前沿之地，广东地区一直不乏高度发展的城市，但同时不得不注意到这里仍聚集着庞大的农村群落，千百年来农业文明快速发展，岭南自然和人文生态面貌丰富多样。以珠三角为发展中心的广东地区，其高度发展的经济建设使得新农村建设成效显著，并逐步辐射到粤西北地区。李节平的艺术创作主题即回归了中国当代绘画中的乡土题材，尤其聚焦在广东新农村这一区域。东晋画家和理论家顾恺之根据描绘客观对象所具有或应该具有的思想感情来论及传神得当与否，此时人们的画观更加注重对自我和人生的认识，开始具有更广泛的文化和哲学层面的意义。从这个角度来看，李节平的人物画在最大程度上回归人的自然本真之态，具有浓厚的生活之风。围绕“新农村、新农民”这一专题，李节平的油画以多种形式呈现，全方位地展现了广东新农村的方方面面，并从中深度挖掘广东农民的乡土生活及其精神风貌。

　　本次“乡野考察——李节平广东新农村专题创作作品展”展现了李节平老师历时四年，走遍2万余公里的岭南大地，走访采风40个县、乡、镇的200余个村庄而累计创作的200余幅作品。随着改革开放40年的发展，广东农村地区发生了巨大变化，也使得广东的农业文明得以乘着改革之风与其他地区文化相交融，形成一幅壮阔缤纷的五彩画卷。李节平老师亲自走访粤东北和粤西南等地进行采风，在那里，他看到的是相对于珠三角发达地区之外，更多保留了原生态的人民生活面貌以及新旧变化中的区域景象，从各个方面深刻反映了我国乡村振兴，展现了广大农民群众对美好生活的热切期盼。本次展览将为观众忠实地呈现广东新农村、新风貌，农耕文明将随时代发展而变化，以适应现代社会新的文明需求及不断更新的农耕精神。

2018年9月

王绍强

广东美术馆馆长

广东省美术家协会副主席

Guangdong New Rural Project by Li Jieping

　　Born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, Li Jieping successively studied oil painting at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and the College of Military Culture, National Defence University PLA China. His long-term professional training, observation and practice enable him to focus on the real life and the people. Being loyal to the people and being close to life has always been his attitude and position on artistic creation, which presents the vast pristine land and the native people living there. As a long-established agricultural country, China had entered the agricultural period earlier. The agricultural civilization has accompanied the people through thousands of years of history and has become the foundation of the dynasties. After the founding of New China, agriculture is still the top priority of the country's development. The related aspects such as farmers and rural areas are the key issues that the country has been confronted with. In addition, China's vast native nature has become an important source of inspiration for artistic and literary creation. "New countryside, new style" - in the works of Li Jieping, we can see the diligent peasants who stand for China's five thousand years of agricultural civilization. Their simple and natural character is combined with the earth, and the rural-themed creation has become an influential force that cannot be ignored by Chinese culture and contemporary art.

　　As a frontier of reform and opening up, Guangdong Province has a few highly developed cities, but at the same time it has to be noted that there are still huge rural communities gathered here. With the rapid development of agricultural civilization for thousands of years, the nature and humanity are rich and diverse. Taking the Pearl River Delta as the development center, its highly developed economy has made the construction of the new countryside remarkable, and gradually spread to the northwest of Guangdong. Li Jieping's artistic creation has responded to the rural theme of contemporary Chinese painting, especially focusing on the new rural areas of Guangdong. Gu Kaizhi, a painter and theorist in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, believes that the basis for painting commentary is whether it portrays the thoughts and feelings that the object has or should have. At that time, people paid more attention to self and life, and began to emphasize a broader cultural and philosophical significance. From this point of view, Li Jieping's figure paintings, to the greatest extent, have echoed the natural state of human beings with a strong life style. Focusing on the topic of new countryside and new peasants, Li Jieping's oil paintings have shown all aspects of Guangdong's new countryside in various forms, and deeply explored the rural life and mental outlook of Guangdong peasants.

　　This exhibition Rural Investigation - Guangdong New Rural Project by Li Jieping shows more than two hundred works created by him, which took him four years to travel over 20,000 kilometers for visiting more than 200 villages in nearly 40 counties and towns of Guangdong. With the development of reform and opening up for forty years, great changes have taken place in the rural areas of Guangdong, which has also brought the agricultural civilization of Guangdong into harmony with the culture of other regions, forming a colorful picture. Li Jieping personally went to the northeast and southwest of Guangdong to conduct the investigation, where is not as developed as the Pearl River Delta region but remains the folk customs and reflects the changing of the regions, profoundly reflecting the revitalization of rural areas in China and demonstrating the eager anticipation of the peasants for a better life. This exhibition will faithfully present the new look of Guangdong's new countryside: agricultural civilization will change with the development of the time to adapt to the new civilized needs of modern society and the constantly updated agricultural spirit.

​September 2018

Wang Shaoqiang

Director of Guangdong Museum of Art

Vice Chairman of Guangdong Artists Association