In 2002, I once had a deep and profound conversation with ZHANG Jian, the sorted-out content of which was published in Gallery magazine the same year. ZHANG Jian was then holding his first solo exhibition in HANMO ART GALLERY, themed "Happiness and Distress", showing three series like "Sunshine Impression", "Urban Landscape"and "Shichahai(Houhai)". The works ranged from the year 1997 to 2002. Actually these three series contained some kind of continuous changing nature, togetherly forming the early clue and main direction of the painter's creation.

　　Sunshine Impression

　　"Sunshine Impression" is part of creations early begun during his study in CAFA.

　　Even though largely using similar style of impressionism to form glow-showing characteristic of works, it is more some kind of recording or memorizing the life trails of the community one belongs to. Therefore, attitude of youths knowing no feelings of worries and stories leisurable and warm flood into the picture and then formed some kind of deliberated flaunt. But in a deeper level, ZHANG Jian tried to illustrate his personal private "realm" exaggeratedly, even not hesitated to use the way nearly mannered.

　　Urban Landscape

　　"Urban Landscape" is a series of works after "Sunshine Impression" and can be regarded as some kind of adjusting acts in landscape.

　　At first, the painter "forced himself to do more thinking and stressed upon a new way of observation. The change of observation point first brought the "new change" to the them, that was moving out of previously so-called "in-situation" of sinking into personal emotions; while the clear direction after "out-of-situation" was actively getting involved into "public sights" through the creation of "Urban Landscape".

　　Though it was weak in picture control and specific painting expression, the change of the theme undoubtedly and strongly led to technical innovation of the painter. For example, the summarized structure of forms and colors formed by the large amount use of flat painting and emphasis upon composition treatment of horizontal lines, all forecast ZHANG Jian's later change.

　　Shichahai (Houhai)

　　"Shichahai (Houhai)" can both be regarded as ZHANG Jian's compromise of his pervious two series and some kind of upgrading of his previous creation experiences.

　　Apparently, ZHANG Jian seemed to return back to the basic point of "Sunshine Impression", paid attention again to "common people and things" surrounding; but all these works undoubtedly shared a "public" background or space-"Shichahai"; Meanwhile, even though the painter sometimes put his own image into the picture, it means not the cliché of "egotism", but emphasis of "involvement", a kind of "deliberated involvement".

　　The reason for "Shichahai(Houhai)" to be impressive is that it has a kind of pure aesthetic feeling: sunshine, blue sky, green water, green tree shadow and young men and women, corresponding to the exact location of "Shichahai", show multiple charms and distinct quality of the city in the overlapping and setting of history and reality.

　　Swimmer

　　Actually, in ZHANG Jian's series of "Shichahai", there is still another series branch named "Swimmer".

　　But during this period of time, the description of "Swimmer" contains a relatively complex treatment: "someone swims under water, someone looks above water", but "there is certain connection between people above and under-or saying that people above mock up the swimmer like teasing a black bear, something a bit like telling stories".

　　However, the aid of narrativeness was undoubtedly a temporary means to help the painter own a relying point for further depth thinking. Actually, in his later works of "Swimmer", ZHANG Jian's "intention" to purify the theme became clearer and clearer-"more painting on one man, lonely, no subject matter, no story, just plain feelings", meanwhile, through flat painting of a large amount, with "the head of the swimmer as the only specific something in the picture", forming a fairly subtle way of expressing.

　　Then behind the purification of the theme and the style, there was a more ambitious purpose of the painted hidden-"The swimmer has no trunk, just a part; his face is also a part, like human or not, a question in reality. It is related to my feelings towards this times." Therefore, ZHANG Jian, from "water-swimming", tried to "evoke the sensitivity of eyes" through pictures and hoped to recur toa kind of function of "vision-feeling", "a bit of emphasis on head, a magnified part", which were both meant to evoke the "perception" and "memory" of people to explore the ultimate truth of the art-"trueness".

　　From previous attention to "the reality", to questioning the so-called "trueness" in "Swimmer", it undoubtedly shows ZHANG Jian's profound transformation in his creation; Meanwhile, this kind of profound transformation, is also involved in forming the painter's art ambitions and interests, establishing the value standard and style. Then the result gradually constructs the ego quality of works and further pushes the painter away from others.

　　Tian'anmen

　　If say "perception" or "memory" evoked by ZHANG Jian's series of "Swimmer" is still a kind of self-compelling on "water" theme, then the painter's later creation of "Tian'anmen" series is involved deeper into "public space", with the purpose to "evoke a kind of common memories". From "Shichahai" to "Tian'anmen", such transition contains certain kind of rationality in fore-and-aft order for ZHANG Jian's creation. But facing with "Tian'anmen", the painter should also be able to endure bigger challenge.

　　The reason is that "Tian'anmen" has its meanings more complex than "Shichahai". Those meanings, on one hand, are governed and fixed by "collective" "common memories"; on the other hand, they are enriched with various "individual" "emotional monologs"; These meanings are enhanced by those "historical" "classic scenes"; then again passionate at "contemporary" "spatio-temporal plots".

　　Actually, we can not summarize the meanings of "Tian'anmen" with some clear word definitions, for it is both collective and individual, both historical and contemporary, it even contains more different meanings due to the mixing ofall kinds of factors.

　　However, without doubt, the difficulty hard to express in words may become effective space for visual art creation. In Chang'an Street (created in 2000), ZHANG Jian used a part of "Tian'anmen", "West Chang'an Street" and "Tian'anmen Square" as the object to describe, constructing a grand scene to evoke people's "common memories". Meanwhile, the deliberated choice of west-east angle of view and dense tree shadow during specific period of time in the afternoon stressed upon a unique personal explanation-stress upon the so-called "expansion" of "common memories" due to the effective evocation of "personal memories". So through the picture, ZHANG Jian was not purposely meant to arouse furious conflicts between "personal memories" and "common memories" to establish his own "orbit" and right to say as other painters did, but tried to co-ordinate the two to achieve complementation.

　　From "Swimmer" to "Tian'anmen", ZHANG Jian's creation was no longer a continuous change of nature, but a kind of qualitative change. The painter were evoking "memories" through paintings to study on the so-called "trueness" while generating new "memories" through the "expansion" of "common memories". The so-called new "memories" has greatly been transformed into the audience's evaluation and understanding of forms, appearance and concepts of ZHANG Jian's personal art.

　　Since 2004, ZHANG Jian's art creation has entered into a new stage, that is, to push the appropriate "boundaries" in compliance with "core concept". Therefore, the painter's works show extremely abundant and even "multi-head" forwarding trend.

　　Black and White Series

　　In some of his works, ZHANG Jian gradually uses black-and-while pictures to replace color pictures, further cuts off the direct relationship with life, implies no meanings or associations of life, gradually moves towards more rational thinking.

　　Something noticeable are those works clearing up painting themes and stressing upon trueness of the moment. "The trueness means not that of the pictures, but of memories". The content of pictures is even nonsense. Therefore, ZHANG Jian also introduces destructive brushworks or rows of brushes to clear up the definition and trueness of objects described. However, the result "leaves bigger space for visual memories", taking on more future looking.

　　Color Series

　　In other creations simultaneously, ZHANG Jian also keeps his use of colors.

　　However, compared with his previous works, we can find that these works, on one hand, further record the current living style with ego images and imply the way of memorizing of the contemporary society while rebuilding visual experiences of the contemporary society with the aid from public images; on the other hand, the use of colors is neither for narrative expression, nor for objective creating, it is more the reveal of conceptual, emotional, atmospheric and even partial satisfaction with current visualization.

　　Reality of History

　　In his subsequent creation, it is easy to associate ZHANG Jian's behaviours with T.S. Eliot's description of connections between historical sense and realistic sense consciousness in poetics: "Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity."

　　In recent conversions, ZHANG Jian always repeated such sayings: "Of course, painting on water is not my purpose, but the way to solve other problems. I think through observation of water, painting on water can be extended to many things, leading to a more vast space…So with Tian'anmen", for example. Now it seems that the so-called "leading to a more vast space" can also be understood as the artist's goal presetting of "his status in time and his relationship with the times".

　　In works, ZHANG Jian is still painting on themes like "Tian'anmen" and "Houhai", but these pictures are no longer "dream works" co-ordinating "personal memories" and "common memories" and constantly generating "new memories", but emphasizing the development of "history" and "reality" and finally cohering into a kind of closely connected relationship between historical sense and realistic sense. Meanwhile, they are also gradually expanding new locations like Chang'an Street and Waitan of Shanghai based on this closely connected relationship.

　　No matter "Tian'anmen" series created in 2006 or Hard Stone Restaurant (2005) and Chang'an Street-China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)(2006), the painter consciously reduces the narrativeness of pictures and no longer adds overly agitative nature of "personal memories". Based on it, ZHANG Jian further enhances and demonstrates his creation direction both caring for the pastness of the past and emphasizing "existence of the past" through aborative selection of subject images with historical sense.

　　From picture structure, it is a kind of overlapping and embedding visual structure-comprising of nearly symbolized subject images and relevant environments and surroundings in a way of deep co-existing. Similarly with closely connected relationship between historical sense and realistic sense, ZHANG Jian has not only organically established "his status in time and his relationship with the times", but also completed some kind of re-shaping of his personal art style.

作者：ZHAO Li