少小爱画，半生从艺；中道出蜀，北上求学。十年磨砺，偶有所感；皆书于下，以此自勉。谨以此文祭奠十年的奋斗历程。

　　一、离家

　　2005年9月10日，天气渐凉。从商数十载，在今天谢幕。我收拾好北上的行囊去追寻我的梦想。家人送我到车站，离去的那一刻，五味杂呈，有太多的眷恋，也有对未来的憧憬和一丝莫明的冲动。车缓缓开动，他们的身影也逐渐模糊。

　　二、中央美院的时光

　　北京中央美术学院油画系十四届助教研修班开始了新的艺术之旅。我把它亲切地定为“人生再就业”，与我之前经商大相径庭，这是一种修炼，是一段内化的、漫长的、艰苦的过程。绘画是我的唯一爱好，但我并不是科班出身，对于这次来之不易的学习机会，我倍感珍惜。

　　李延州教授任研修班班主任，班里二十个同学都是来自全国各大艺术院校的老师。和他们同窗两年，我感到非常幸运，同时压力也很大。刚入学的时候，一切都是新鲜的，充满挑战的，正待我“迈步从头越”。我从来没有像这样单纯的整天画画，无法跟上反复的素描和油画的训练课程，强大的信息量同时涌进我的大脑，充斥着我的神经，让我应接不暇。渐渐摸索出以“打包”的形式将信息封存起来慢慢消化，这段日子过得既紧张又充实。

　　三、融化

　　我第一次正式接触油画，也是第一次接受专业的美术理论教育，老师们的授课方式也叫我耳目一新。全新的艺术观点和理念将我深深吸引，使我在艺术技法和理论上受益良多，以往对艺术空缺的地方也慢慢开始清晰和明了，让我很快对当今的油画有了更多的理解和认识。正如教授们的主张“画自己的画，不走别人的路，画出特色，强调个性化和艺术化”。这种精神一直鼓励这、影响着我，也奠定了我未来的创作思维和方向。在研修班一年的学习中，我已从“陌生”转换成“熟稔”，从“新鲜”转换成“熟知”。

　　四、工作室

　　第一学年转眼过去。新学年开学时，同学蒋华君在索家村租了一间工作室，让我很是心动。我也要有自己的工作！拥有自己的工作室可以更好的实现创作，但是费用问题却让我很头痛。一方面我不想让家人有更多的负担，另一方面也不愿意让他们担心我。于是在此期间工作室的所有费用，都是靠朋友周转。这段时间得很艰苦，特别是入冬以后，工作室的供暖都是自己烧锅炉，为了方便去美院还专门买了一辆二手自行车。

　　与此同时，拆迁风波让很多艺术家纷纷搬离，我经常一人穿梭在人烟稀少的索家村。蒋华君也为他的美术培训班起早贪黑的忙碌着，偶尔在工作室叙叙旧，蹭顿饭。随后同学张新文也搬到工作室和我一起，大家相互学习、相互鼓励，为各自的理想而奋斗。寒冷的冬季我们相互温暖！

　　五、寻路

　　第二年的课程主要以创作为主，对于一直从事水彩风景创作的我而言，要进行新的油画创作很难，更何况选择的是以人物为主的创作主题。在那段时间，还和蒋华君说过，早知人物创作如此困难，还不如选择以风景作为主题，和同学一起外出写生，不管如何一月下来还有十几张作品。可是，要想创作好的作品，必须有一段煎熬的过程。我不断地为自己打气，同时经常到798艺术区感受现代艺术气息，寻找创作作品的突破口，不断更新思路，并尝试更多的作品表现形式。从多色到单色、从薄到厚、从具象到表现，最后创作出第一批作品《摩托车系列》。李老师是这次创作课的导师，每两周来一次工作室指导，但是每次李老师都不认可我的创作，这又让我再一次迷茫在创作中。

　　索家村的日子是孤独的，没有几个熟悉的艺术家，无法进行交流。直到后来，知道费家村那边有川籍艺术家，并且有很多都是艺术领域的重要人物，心里非常激动。我终于下定决心，骑着自行车前往费家村。连吃几次闭门羹，终于发现五号院开着。在往里走的时候，里面的人发现了我，主动把门打开，并非常热情地招呼我进去坐坐，他就圈里人人尊称“罗叔”罗锦华先生。工作室里的作品呈现的形式非常特别，是我从未见过的。后来才知道这里是她女儿（罗露）和女婿（庄红艺）的工作室。他们都来自四川，我们的相识也是一年来认识的第一位川籍艺术家朋友。通过罗叔，有了一些新的艺术家朋友。他也常常来我的工作室关心和鼓励我。当他看见我以前的水彩作品，非常喜欢，同时还帮我推荐了一家画廊给我做了第一次北京的水彩展。这次展览是对我以前水彩作品的总结，更重要的收获是通过此次展览认识了更多的艺术圈朋友，并有幸邀请到了俸正杰。慢慢地，生活节奏也基本适应，在艺术方面也有一些新的方向。

　　北京不仅仅是全国的艺术舞台，更是一个世界的艺术平台，艺术品的受众对艺术创作对象和关注点也不同。正因为如此，在创作上有我有了更多的思路和想法，将画了半年多的《摩托车系列》停下，启动了新的题材——城市橱窗景观。橱窗里的物体是社会存在的另外一个替换现象，这种替换方式也是当下消费社会的特殊现象。在此认识的基础上，再去选择，放大，组合画面内容，它们最终所叙述的故事是很荒诞的。这一切正反射出当下的都市人格，成为一个缩小的社会景观。研修班快要结束时，第一批《时代标签》作品已得到了李老师的认可。并且其中两件作品参加了全国第十九届新人新作展。

　　六、朋友

　　两年的研修学习结束了，但是我的艺术创作之路才刚刚开始。何去何从，回到四川还是继续在北京发展，让我再一次彷徨。在这个关键时刻，相识多年的好友刘芯涛从蓝顶艺术区转向北京费家村。他工作室装修期间，在我工作室暂住。我们经常针对我的作品进行分析和探讨，并且提出了一些建设性的意见。他见证了我在索家村工作生活状况。同年七月，他去西藏参加活动后，我把一年以来所有的创作进行总结，把现有的技法表现形式进行综合比较。那时有两个不同表现手法的系列，最后调整以《摩托车》的肌理形式取代《时代标签》平面表现形式，抛开光亮的色彩，用单纯的黑白灰形式表现作品，部份借用水彩处理的方法融入画面。新颖的创作手法让作品明显较之前多了力量和形式感。

　　八月回到四川休假，一天收到刘芯涛从北京发来的短信，他说，“回到工作室看到你新的作品非常开心，你一定会为乐山人民争光的！”，这条信息让我信心倍增。不久后，又接到罗叔的好消息，一家荷兰画廊对我的《摩托车系列》很有兴趣，计划做一个展览。接二连三的好消息，让我提前结束了休假回到了北京工作室，开始新的冲刺。真心感谢我的朋友们！

　　七、展览

　　十月，突然接到美国（北京）威诺里萨当代艺术中心的电话预约来工作室看作品，当场就确定了个人作品巡展计划。2007年11月17日《时代标签》个展在北京展出，12月16日在深圳格丰艺术机构展出。随后，美国迈阿密一家画廊邀请展出这批作品，并得到了很多欧美藏家的肯定。

　　来年将工作室搬到了何各庄村318艺术园。五月与威诺里萨当代艺术中心签定了我从事职业艺术家的第一份合约。签约次日，“5.12”汶川大地震让我很震惊。24小时网络与电视的图片和视频信息不断地萦绕在我心间，随后我和一些川籍艺术家发起了为灾区人民捐款的活动。地震的惨状触动了我的内心深处，我毅然放下了之前的创作系列，将地震作为了新的创作主题。

　　震后一年半期间，我全身心投入了新作品的创作，先后六次进入灾区收集创作素材，每次回来都有不一样的感触，这些来自深层的情感体验驱使我在作品中倾注了更多的人文关怀。通过两年来的思考和准备，创作大体已经成型，将创作形式从架上衍生到水彩、雕塑和装置，全方面地诠释对汶川地震的缅怀。

　　美国堪萨斯基金会和威诺里萨当代艺术中心一直关注着这批地震作品的创作和进度。在此期间我一共创作了六个系列七十七件作品，其中包括雕塑作品《凝》、装置作品《冥之物语》、架上作品《抢滩人世》、《三洋之痛》、《面孔》和《凝固的记忆》系列。2010年4月11日，个人作品巡展《见证》在今日美术馆拉开序幕，随后在北京威诺里萨艺术中心、成都四川大学美术馆和深圳华术馆展出。

　　通过《见证》的创作，使我艺术的表现手法更加凝练，语言更加纯粹，慢慢地形成了自己独有的风格。之后五年，先后参加了更多的国内外联展和艺术活动。欧美国家与中国截然不同的风土人情和文化氛围，潜移默化进我的艺术创作中，在延续以前作品系列的同时，《恶之花》和《变迁》应运而生。

　　从古郡到京城，十载光阴，时间洗礼了我，栽培了我，往事历历在目。感念岁月！感念十年！

The Ten Years of Mine

Liao Zhenwu

　　I was keen on painting since my childhood and have been engaged in it for half of my lifetime. I left Sichuan at my middle age and went to Beijing for the pursuit of study. Recalling all the sufferings and gains I have had in these ten years wakes up my impulse of putting them into words. Here I write It, as an encouragement to myself, as a milestone to my past ten struggling years.

　　I. Left Home

　　On sept. 10, 2005, a chilly day, I closed the business I had run for decades and got packed for the pursuit of my dream to the North. My families saw me off at the railway station. The moment the train moved, my emotion is a mixture of attachment to home, hope to the future and some inexplicable impulse. The train speeded up gradually, their figures got blurred by and by.

　　II. In Central Academy of Fine Arts

　　I started my new journey of art in the 14th Teaching Assistant Training Class of Oil Painting Department of CAFA. I called it "the re-employment of my life", as It was widely divergent from doing business. This was a kind cultivation, a process of Internalization, long and arduous. Though painting was my only hobby, I was not a professional painter. So I cherish the hard-won chance of learning greatly.

　　Professor Li Yanzhou, was the master of our training class. My classmates, 20 of them all together, are teachers from some Important art colleges over the country. The two-year learning time formed my luck, as well as the pressure. At the beginning of the study, everything Is new to me and every challenges waited for me to overcome. I had never In my life before spent a whole day on painting purely, and I couldn't catch up with the repetitive training of sketching and oil painting. Too much amount of information was packed into my brain, overwhelming my nerves, dizzying my eyes. By and by I fished out a way of learning, that Is, "packing" all the information and sealing It up for later digestion. At that time, my life was intense but rich.

　　III. Fusion

　　The training course was the first time that I got in contact with oil painting and the first time I received professional art theory education. The ways the teachers teach were brand new to me. I was deeply attracted by the new artistic ideas and opinions, which brought me lots of benefits on techniques and theories. Some gaps in the knowledge of art were gradually narrowed and bridged. I soon constructed new understanding and recognition on modern oil painting. The professors proposed that "you should paint independently and alone, with your own feature, personality and artistic language." This spirit has been encouraging and influencing me all the time. It has also founded the basis of my future thinking and creation. Within one year in the training class, I was transformed from "an outsider" to "an acquaintance", from "a green hand" to "a professional painter".

　　IV. Studio

　　The first academic year was gone soon. At the very beginning of the new semester, my classmate Jiang Huajun rented a studio in Suojiacun village. How I envied him! I rented a studio of my own, in which I could better realize my creation. But the house rent gave me a headache. Neither did I want to load extra burden on my families, nor to make them worried about me. It were my friends who supported me with all the expenses. That was a hard time. Especially when the winter came, I had to burn the coal fired boiler myself for the heating of the studio. I bought a second-handed bicycle later for the convenience of having classes in the school.

　　At the same time, many artists were moving out due to the threatening of demolition. I often rode to and fro alone through the village where you could hardly see people around. Jiang Huajun was occupied by his training school of art courses day and night. Occasionally, he would come to my studio and have a chat or a meal. Later, another classmate Zhang Xinwen moved to my place. We stayed together, learned from each other and encouraged each other to strive for our dreams. We warmed each other throughout the cold winter.

　　V. Road -seeking 

　　The courses in the second year were mainly about creation. As I had been working on scenery watercolor painting, it was very hard for me to shift to oil painting, let alone painting mainly with figures. At that time, I had once told Jiang Huajun, if I had known so hard it is to paint figures, I should have chosen to scenery as my theme. When I went out to paint from nature, I could anyway create at least ten pieces of paintings. But I knew as well good works must come out of sufferings. So I kept pumping up myself and I often went to 798 art district to feel the modern art atmosphere and to seek for a breakthrough for my creation. I kept renewing my ideas and tried various ways to manifest them. My works went from polychrome to monochrome, from thin to thick, from figurative to presentative. Finally my first batch of works came out, that is the Motorcycle series. Professor Li came to my studio once two weeks as my supervisor. But his denial to my creation made me lost again.

　　My life in Suojiacun was full of loneliness. With few artists, I had nobody to communicate with. Later, I heard some artists from Sichuan lived in Feijiacun village and many of them were authorities in art circle. I was excited and rode my bike there for quite a few times only to find the doors shut. There was a time I found Yard No. 5 open. As I walked inside, someone saw me and welcomed me in. This one was the so-called Uncle Luo in circle, Mr. Luo Jinhua. The works displayed in the studio were very special in forms, which were something that I had never seen before. I was told later that this was uncle Luo's daughter (Luo Lu) and her husband(Zhuang Hongyi)' s studio. They were all from Sichuan. This was the first artist from Sichuan I knew in Beijing. Through Uncle Luo, I made friends with other artists. Uncle Luo's visitation of my studio always brought me concern and encouragement. He spoke highly of my previous watercolor paintings and it was under his recommendation a gallery held an exhibition fro me. That was my first watercolor exhibition In Beijing, which was a summary for my previous watercolor paintings. Through the exhibition I knew more artists. One among them was Mr. Feng Zhengjie, who accepted my invitation and came to the exhibition in person. By and by, my life got its right pace and my creation was also on a new way.

　　Beijing is not only a national platform of art, but a world stage of art. Audiences' tastes diverge on artistic subjects and focuses. Therefore, once the new ideas and thoughts of creation were formed in my mind, I dropped the Motorcycle series and started a new topic--the sight of shop windows in downtown. The objects in shop windows are the substitutions of the social existence. These substitutions are the particular representation of modern consumption. With this cognition as the foundation, I selected the targets, exaggerated them, and rearranged contents, which finally made the narration very weird. I felt released that the first batch of Tag of Time received approval from Professor Li and two of them were chosen to The Nineteenth National Exhibition of New Artists and New Works.

　　VI. Friends

　　Two years of training classes were over, but my way of art creation was just to begin. Where to go, back to Sichuan or keep staying in Beijing? I felt hesitated again. At this key moment, a friend that I knew for years, Liu Xintao moved from Blueroof art district in Sichuan to Feijiacun in Beijing. While his studio was in décoration, he lived in my studio. During that time, we had a lot of analysis and discussion on my works, which were proved to be very constructive. He witnessed my life and work in Suojiacun. In that July, He went Tibet for activities. I summarized all the creations in the whole year, and compared my current techniques and ways of manifestation. Finally I decided to combine the two ways of manifestation, to use the texture In The Motorcycle Series to replace the graphic form used in Ta of Time, to discard those bright colors and use black and white only, and to fuse the skills of watercolor painting Into the oil painting. This unique way of painting obviously infused power into the pictures and enhanced the sense of forms.

　　I went back to Sichuan on vacation in August. One day I got a text message from Liu Xin tao, who had returned to Beijing. He said: "I was so pleased to see your new works when I came back to your studio. You will be a pride of Leshan people." The text message encouraged me a lot. Soon, I got a good news feon Uncle Luo, --a gallery from Netherland was interested in my Motorcycle Series and planned to hold an exhibition. so I had to cut my vacation short and came back to Beijing in advance. Thanks to all my friends, I started a new sprint.

　　VII. Exhibitions

　　In October, I received an unexpected phone call from American CVAC (Beijing) to ask for a visitation of my studio. They decided on the spot that they would hold an individual itinerant exhibitions for me. On July 17, 2007, my individual exhibition Tag of Time was opened in Beijing; December 16, it was held in Shenzhen Gefeng Art institution. Later, these works were invited to exhibited in Miami, America and won the approval of European and American collectors.

　　Next year, I moved to Hegezhuang village In 318 Art Park. In May, CVAC signed with me a contract, which was the very first one I had had as a professional painter. The second day after the contract. The 5.12 earthquake in Wenzhan shocked me greatly. The pictures and videos kept haunting in my mind. Then some artists from Sichuan and I launched a donation activity. The misery of the earthquake shake my heart. So I decided to drop the series that I was going on, and took earthquake a new theme.

　　For one and a half year, I put all my heart and soul into the creation of new works. I went into the disaster area for six times to collect creative materials. Every time I came back with different feelings, which, as kind of emotional experiences out of the bottom of heart, contributed greatly to the humanistic care of my works. After two years of thinking and preparation, my creation is generally formed. The form goes from canvas oil painting to water color painting, from statue to installation, which recorded the Wenchuan earthquake from all aspects.

　　American Kansa Fund and CVAC paid close attention on the creation and progress of this earthquake series all the time. I altogether created six series with 77 pieces of works, including the statue Gaze, installation Stories of the Underworld, paintings series Oil cavas Struggling for a thread of Life, The Agony of Three Oceans, Faces, and Frozen Memories.

　　On April 1, 2010, my individual itinerant exhibition Witness was opened in Today Art museum, and exhibited later In Beijing CVAC, the Art Gallery of Sichuan University in Chendu and Shenzhen OCT Art Gallery.

　　With the creation of Witness, my artistic technique and language got more concise and pure. I formed my unique personal style. In the following five years, I took part in quite a few group exhibition home and abroad, as well as many other art activities. The customs and cultures of those western countries which were completely different from China were integrated into my creations in an unconscious way. On the basis of my previous works, the Flower of Evil and Changes came into being.

　　From an ancient city to the capital, ten years saw my growth and maturity. Recalling the past, I am grateful to the time and tide! These ten years I cherish for all my life!

作者：廖真武