The Course of Transformation

　　Zhang Yu is an important representative figure of experimental ink and wash in the mainland of China. Since the beginning of his Divine Light series in the early 1990s, he has been an initiator of forms, a producer of theories, and an organizer of activities. Like numerous other experimental artists, he originally adopted the realistic style, and via the stages of symbolism, expressionism and imagery, has eventually entered the abstract context.

　　In the realistic and expressionist stage from 1990 to 1993, a large number of swimming tadpoles and floating ellipsoids (symbols of sperms and ovums) appeared in his paintings, and these scattered and single elements were combined into larger human figures. This “grammar” characterized by the integral narrative structure made up of single elements was continued afterwards in Zhang Yu’s works of different stages in various ways. The year 1994 witnessed the beginning of the Divine Light series in which incomplete circles, broken squares and floating fragments constituted three basic schematic elements. The total effect was heavy, gloomy, tense and mysterious, as if what was depicted was the scene of the universe when earth was first separated from the heaven, or the fantasy about science and technology in the microcosmos… By means of repeated and complicated shading, rubbing and dyeing, Zhang Yu gives an incisive and vivid portrayal of the wondrous images with distinctive personal style. The Divine Light series is an experiment of visual art in terms of forms, and at the same time a depiction of the mental symptoms of the modern people. The history is fragmented, the future is uncertain, traditional ideas and present-day experience collide, break, join and merge with each other. The danger of collapse is faintly shown in the stable structure, and dim light often appears in the dark background…

　　In 2003, Zhang Yu suddenly brought a pause to the creation of the Divine Light series, which he had engaged in for nine years and which had brought him much reputation, and he turned to a entirely new series: Fingerprints. This is a very unfamiliar series. The work is densely studded with Zhang Yu’s own fingerprints, red, gray, or black. On the unmounted Xuan paper, the concave or convex fingerprints in graceful disorder show rich color phase, light or dark, and texture.

　　Highest Attainment in Forms

　　The Fingerprints series is the highest attainment Zhang Yu has achieved so far in his creation of personal formal language.

　　In terms of tools and materials, the Fingerprints series has achieved “de-brush-and-ink” to the greatest extent. Brush, the most important tool in the traditional Chinese painting, has been omitted. Although the “finger painting” has been explored by our predecessors, in his “fingerprints”, Zhang Yu has subverted the sedulous imitation of the traces of brush and made the traces of his finger appear in his painting directly in their original state. Entirely new personal schemata come into being in the process of multiplication.

　　In terms of visual composition, the Fingerprints series has achieved “de-form” to the greatest extent. It has abandoned almost all the compositions of points, lines, and planes used in and after the Divine Light series. When producing any work in the Fingerprints series, Zhang Yu does not consider the traditional way of planning the composition. He may start his “labor” from any point of the paper. In such a way of producing art, the most important thing is the high degree of unity of the “process” and the “traces” and the coherence of the overall atmosphere.

　　In terms of aesthetic psychology, the Fingerprints series has achieved “de-imagery” to the greatest extent. Analogous and metaphorical information is reduced to the least, and minimum is approached in form. As a matter of fact, the choice of thorough visual abstraction is the choice of thorough openness in meaning. Zhang Yu does not attempt to lead the beholder to any specific situation. He has yielded the right of explanation to the beholder. Any angle is possible from which such works is to be explained.

　　Through experiment and practice of more than three years, Zhang Yu’s Fingerprints series has gradually achieved a special state --- pure but not monotonous, succinct but not simple. Zhang Yu thinks that various forms of “addition” will exist in everybody’s earlier experience. They are often blind in their feverish pursuit of experience, knowledge and fortune. But when they have reached middle age, the time of subtraction will surely come. It will be of vital importance to boldly abandon and highly refine the artistic language. Such is the case of the Fingerprints series, expanding from one to infinity and then reducing from infinity to one.

　　Behavior and Practices

　　Time elapses silently, and the traces of life expand slowly and accumulate on the paper to the accompaniment of the movement of the hand…The fingerprints, seemingly monotonous and repeated, gradually show the rich wisdom of the painter in the process of his manual labor day after day, similar to the auditory experience of the slow and gentle rhythm of the seven-stringed plucked instrument. With the persevering and calm mental state reflected in it, the Fingerprints series gives us steadily the feeling of recovering our original purity and simplicity.

　　In the traditional life of China, “fingerprints” symbolize the serious “contract”. Zhang Yu’s innumerable accumulated fingerprints are as impressive as significant contracts. But Zhang Yu uses the fingerprints for more than their sociological significance. He says, “The visual effect of the Fingerprints is the result of the superimposing and pressing of red traces on the Xuan paper. Due to the plasticity of the material of Xuan paper, the pressing force of the finger has changed the original structure of the paper material, bringing about pit-like relief effect. At the same time, the magic power of the natural illumination completely dissolves the original meaning of the traces of fingerprints. What emerges is the visual character of the traces of fingerprints…”In order to enhance the change of character of the material brought about by pressing, Zhang Yu has begun to attempt some sculptures. On some small-scale draft works just finished, fingerprints have produced more definite concave effect on a large number of densely piled small pottery balls.

　　This process of calm creation day after day is similar to the practices of “kung fu”. Although this series depends on vision in form, the result transcends vision. The finger’s dipping in color corresponds to “receiving the air”, its touching the paper to “moving the air”, and its pressing the paper to “sending the air”… The continuous repetition of this process leads to the effect of “depicting emptiness with the air, developing traces with the emptiness, achieving images with the traces, securing spirit with images, and attaining a realm with images”. For the beholder, every dot in the work can be regarded as the embodiment of the artist’s social identity and traces of life; for the artist himself, this mode of doing art may help the artist to express directly his inner world and to convey the most complicated implications in the purest language.

　　Conceptions Beyond Vision

　　Beginning with the performance and practice suggestive of Chan Buddhism, the Fingerprints series is creating an entirely new visual impression of experimental ink and wash. Beyond the form characterized by densely interlaced and superimposed dots, the video full of life is opening the door of conceptions directed straightly to the original meaning of painting.

　　In all the genres of visual art, painting is the oldest and most fundamental. The prophecy of “painting will die” has been constantly heard since the advent of photography. But the experience of more than one hundred years proves that painting is still living, and many of the prophets have died. Today, new media art is prevalent in the international art world, and the artists still engaged in painting in all parts of the world are thinking about the destiny of painting and its future trend. As a part of contemporary Chinese painting, experimental ink and wash is also facing an unprecedented challenge.

　　Zhang Yu’s research on the Fingerprints series is both further rebellion against the traditional tools of brush and ink and subversion of the fundamental conception of painting. hrough his continuously repeated labor, Zhang Yu tries to survey the lowest limit of language: To what extent can new painting get away from old conceptions after the inertial thinking of using brush is abandoned?

　　While moving to minimalism in style and abandoning his pursuit of brush and ink, Zhang Yu has been exploring the origin of art in his heart. What is painting on earth? What is its ultimate significance of painting: representing the objective world, expressing the subjective feeling, or presenting the invisible mental image? …His solution is recording the pure performance on the pure media and manifesting eternal strength by the aid of the interaction between the large amount of “performance” and the changed “material”. “One flower is a world, one grain of sand is a universe” Under his fingertip, the new conception of painting is transformed into a special mode of expression transcending visual signs and in this process the inner spiritual factors are continuously emphasized and given prominence. The small fingerprints thus remind the beholder of the elapse of time and the boundlessness of the universe.

　　The lightness of Xuan paper and the heaviness of time always constitute two sharply contrasting poles in Zhang Yu’s paintings. The mental tension resulting from this contrast will surely continue in the experience of every viewer.

Shanghai, February 5, 2007

作者：Li,Xu