他曾经漂洋过海在塞舌尔群岛上定居八年，后来又去了欧洲然后在新西兰成为移民。不知是大起大落的海外生活改变了他，还是太平洋岛原生自然环境影响了他，李南凤不像中国大陆任何一个画家，甚至很难找到一种类似的风格来加以言说。

　　He once sailed across the ocean to settle in the Seychelles for eight years, later he went to Europe, and then became an immigrant to New Zealand. I do not know whether the ups and downs of life abroad have changed him or the native natural environment of the Pacific island has affected him. Li Nanfeng is not like any Chinese painter. It is even difficult to find a similar style to describe his work.

　　李南凤毕业于中央美术学院版画系，有很好的写实功夫。面对画布时那种内心激情，使他很快放弃了分析性的精工细作。但把握对象的判断力仍旧根深蒂固地保留在他对于形体、轮廓的准确观察与提取之中。他多少受过高更原始主义倾向的影响，大概是因为在国外呆过的地方，都有当地土著文化的浓厚氛围。然而李南凤的兴趣并不在原始性生活情景和原生态自然风光，他从中感受的是那股“野性的激情”，这和他内心潜伏的“激情的野性” 相互呼应，不谋而合。交织于画面，乃是感受与冲动、刺激与狂热的迸发。

　　Li Nanfeng graduated from the Printmaking School of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, with outstanding realism skills. That inner passion when facing a canvas makes him reject analytical sophisticated processes and exquisite cultivation. However, the sense of visually understanding objects is still deeply rooted in his accurate observation and extraction of shapes and outlines. He is somehow affected by tendencies toward the primitivism of Paul Gauguin, probably because the places he has stayed in while abroad all have a strong atmosphere originating in their respective local aboriginal cultures. However, Li Nanfeng’s interest is not in primitive life scenery and original ecological natural landscape, and he can perceive that "wild passion” in them, which echoes and coincides with a “passionate wildness” latent in his heart. Interwoven in his pictures are the bursts of feelings and impulses as well as excitement and fanaticism.

　　他经常把画面画得很满，即使是一张脸，也装满四角，给人以强烈而又怪诞的视觉印象。仿佛是画中人的眼光笼罩着你，让你来不及观看就陷入情绪包围之中。其间强烈的黑白对比，有如重金属音响一样撞击心灵。然后才是变形的五官、沧桑的皱纹、痛楚或狰狞的表情。类似的作品在李南凤《迈克尔•杰克逊系列》肖像画中得到了充分的表达。画家更多地以正方形构图来重新安排对象的脸部毛发，放大眼睛和嘴唇，让那些与表情有关的情绪得以强化。四周的黑色与暗红，使迈克尔如面具般戏剧化的面孔显得异常突出。而浓重、狂野、涂鸦式的笔触，不仅是画家对迈克尔歌声与表演的体会，同时也包含着他在这位国际巨星辉煌而短暂的一生中所感受的悲欢沉浮，亦可以说是画家自我身世的影射与象征。迈克尔脸上那一丝天真无邪而又不无狞厉的嘲笑，让我们感到心酸、心疼而又心悸。明星是当代文化的图腾，当信仰堕入消费时，人类精神会是一幅怎样的图景，李南凤的画总是能让人窥其一二。

　　He often composes paintings with a very full image, even if it is just a face, letting the image fill the canvas to all four corners, giving a strong and grotesque visual impression. It is as if the eyes in the painting are shadowing you so that you are already caught in the mood before viewing the actual work. His use of the strong contrast of black and white is like heavy metal sounds striking your consciousness. Then there are the deformed facial features, wrinkles of vicissitudes, and expressions of pain or grim experience. Similar techniques are fully expressed in the Michael Jackson Series portraits of Li Nanfeng. The painter rearranges faces & hair, and enlarges the eyes and lips of his subjects to fill their square layouts in order to strengthen expressions related to the emotions. The surrounding black and dark red make the mask-like dramatic face of Michael extremely prominent. And the thick, wild and graffiti-style brush strokes not only show the perceptions the painter has taken from the songs and performances of Michael, but also contain the joys and sorrows, the ups and downs he feels in the glorious yet short life of this international superstar, perhaps insinuating the similarity and symbolic connection with the life of a painter. That trace of an innocent yet terrifying laugh on Michael’s face makes us feel sad, distressed and slightly horrified. A star is the totem of contemporary culture. When faith falls into consumption, what kind of image could capture the human spirit? The paintings of Li Nanfeng always offer people a clue.

　　南凤作品的野性不仅表现在他肆意妄为的线条笔触之中，也表现在他对形体的重新塑造之中。无论是以橄榄球赛为题材的作品，还是他不断描绘的女人体，画家都善于在浓墨重彩中刻画出与众不同的形体，强悍、凶猛的男球手如石头般敦厚，饱满、重拙的女人体如浮雕般丰厚。其对油画质材直接效果的发挥，常常和画家对中国画墨分五色的理解结合起来，搅动的黑色和光暗的分布，使其作品的向心性突出且充满视觉张力，观者似乎一下就被抓进画面之中。反过来，当李南凤进行水墨创作的时候，又以形体的简化沟通质材的单纯，粗重然而准确的轮廓线，加上随意的淡墨涂抹，总能耐人寻味地勾勒出同样有力的形体感 。从这个意义上讲，李南凤不是简单的图式画家，他从不服从流行图像的既成性，更愿意以一种任性然而是创造的方式来表现内心的激越。只不过是这种表现不是自我的封闭而是开放，向当代人视觉经验的开放。李南凤是一个当代的野蛮人或野蛮的当代人，他不愿认同当今世界资本市场的规训，起码是在他自己最想绘制、最擅长绘制的作品之中。

　　The wildness of Nanfeng’s works is expressed not only in his spontaneous lines and brush strokes, but also in his reshaping of bodies. Whether considering his works with the theme of football games or those focusing on the female forms he constantly depicts, the painter is good at depicting distinctive bodies using thick ink & bold colors; tough and ferocious male players solid like stones, ample & clumsy female bodies with texture like reliefs. His improvisation in the direct effect of the oil painting medium often combines with his understanding of the five ink colors used in Chinese paintings. The distribution of stirred black and light make his works highly focused and filled with visual tension, and viewers seem to be caught in the picture. In turn, when Li Nanfeng creates ink wash paintings, the simplified communication of the material of bodies combined with heavy yet accurate outlines utilizing random light ink strokes, always evokes the fascination with outline combined with the same powerful understanding of the human form. In this sense, Li Nanfeng is not a simple schematic painter who does not follow the popular style of image construction, but instead expresses his inner agitation with a more willful yet creative approach. It is apparent that this expression is not self closure but opening, an opening of visual experience to contemporary people. Li Nanfeng is a contemporary savage or perhaps a barbarous contemporary person, who does not desire to agree with the accepted styles and disciplines of capital markets in the world today. It is obvious, at least in his own works that he wants to draw and his drawing skill is excellent.

　　李南凤也画风景画，并且从风景走向抽象作品。对于绘画本身，他没什么约束，不拘题材，不拘类型，不拘具象与抽象，不拘繁复与简练，不拘刻写与涂鸦，也不拘色彩的鲜艳与沉重。在风景画中他不惮以形象重复来造成浓密的构图，其形式感新鲜、刺激而又活泼。其抽象作品则是一片狂热，线条、色块乃至数字、图象，如酒神之所为，率性而偶发，其形其色交织错位，毫无头绪可言。然紊乱之中却有着不经意的协调，如野人狂呼荒原，无论怎样混乱怎么宣泄，声波传来，总有其速度的节律。这是自然的、本体的力量。李南凤对于乱象的把握，乃是中国画家中的佼佼者。此其绘画之所长，观者不可不察也。

　　Li Nanfeng also produces landscape pieces, from more traditional and realistic paintings to abstract works. In his paintings he is not bound by subject, type, concrete realism or abstraction, complexity and conciseness, inscription and graffiti, or by the brightness and heaviness of colors. In landscape paintings, he is not afraid to create dense composition with repeated images in fresh, exciting and lively forms. His abstract works are fantastical, with willful and occasional lines, colors and digits, even images by Bacchus, who’s interwoven and scattered shapes and colors have no obvious sense at all. However, disorder has a casual co-ordination, like a savage’s call in the wilderness. No matter how chaotic and expressive, sound waves arrive with a certain rhythm, which is the power of nature and ontology. On the perception of chaos, Li Nanfeng is an one of the most outstanding of Chinese painters. Viewers must not miss witnessing his painting talents.

　　我第一次看到李南凤作品时，内心充满震撼。中国美术界自九十年代深陷市场操作以来，已在图式化倾向中沉溺太久。那种因不断复制而日益苍白的作品比比皆是，除了换取名利之外，早就和中国人的精神现场毫无关系。在虚假繁荣与强制和谐的背后，是官僚资本和集体皇权对人及其自由的剥夺。中国人作为个体的精神诉求正处在极度的文化困境之中。南凤的绘画无疑是一声凄厉的叫喊，让人振聋发聩，意识到野地、民间、底层的存在。他让我想起了杰克•伦敦小说《荒野的呼唤》描写的头狼巴克，其天性永远不能适应既成的秩序和规训，内心响彻的只有不羁的狼嚎。李南凤带着狂人般的野性归来，他能保持下去并继续发声吗?姑且让我们用心聆听荒野的呼唤吧，中国还没有到应该充分享受平静的时候。

　　When first seeing works of Li Nanfeng, I was filled with shock. Since the deep market operations of the nineties, Chinese fine arts have been indulging in an image formulation tendency for too long. Those works slowly growing pale through continuous replication are everywhere; this has nothing to do with spiritual side of the Chinese people of long ago other than as an exchange for fame and fortune. Behind false prosperity and forced harmony, it is the bureaucratic capital and collective imperial power that deprive people of their freedom. In individual spiritual aspirations, Chinese are facing an extreme cultural dilemma. Nanfeng's paintings are undoubtedly shrill screams, making people enlightened and aware of the existence of the wilderness, civil society, and the bottom parts of society. He reminds me of the wolf Buck in Call of the Wild by Jack London, whose nature can never adapt to established order and discipline, only able to express itself by uninhibited howls resounding through the heart. Li Nanfeng returns with the wildness of a madman. Can he maintain this intensity and continue to voice it? Let’s listen carefully to the call of the wild. China has not yet reached a time to fully appreciate this quietness.

　　王林Wang Lin

　　2012年6月10日

　　June 10, 2012

　　(王林：四川美术学院教授，著名美术批评家)

　　(Professor in Sichuan Fine Arts Institute & Famous Fine Arts Critic: Wang Lin)

作者：王林