It was several years ago that Angelique Shidi started to engage herself in painting as an amateur. She was sick and having problem uttering, then all of a sudden she wanted to paint her feelings for the gems and the cosmos. In her heart the gems and the cosmos are alive, with their own history of growth, their own ways of life, and their own structure and luster. She studied realistic skills, yet produced abstract painting, in such a natural, novel and mature manner that speaks out the magnificence in her heart with a unique style. What a wonder.
　　Of course it is not the Zen philosophy that is influencing Angelique Shidi’s painting, however, the “following the Nature” idea in her painting parallels to that philosophy. She combines childlike naivety with adult visual experiences, integrating childlike unfetteredness with the supreme capacity of the adult in controlling the medium, which gives her painting a mature cultural trait, while maintaining in it a childlike vivacious spirituality. Such is a realm so many artists dream of yet few manage to attain.
　　There is no sure answer to the inquiry why Angelique Shidi produces abstract painting, whether she does it unintentionally, intentionally or both. In her works is sometimes order within disorder, and sometimes disorder within order. It is very felicitous for Xu Jiang to describe Angelique Shidi’s painting as Invisible Wings in the Wind. Her works are like water in the sky turned into clouds, into wind, into colourful sunrays, into thunder, and showing no trace of intention and roaming freely. The first reason that allows Angelique Shidi to attain such a realm is her natural gift, the trait and ability to have no obstacle between the mind and the hands and to paint freely. The second reason is her experience in studying and observing the gems. Although how this experience ignited her sagacity in painting is unknown, it is clear that there is an interactive and interdependent relationship between the two. The third reason is her non-utilitarian attitude. Painting for her is an amateur act, a need of life in a special situation, and a spiritual play, the process of which is far more important than the result. This process is not interfered by any distractive utilitarian thoughts, but rather a commitment of the whole body and soul - it is pure, innocent and truly free.
　　Angelique Shidi’s painting integrates the wash of the ink, bright colours and luminous lustres. The wash of the ink is rooted in the ink material and her Chinese cultural background; the bright colours coming from her illumination of the nature; and the luminous luster closely relevant to her constant “dialogue” with the gems and the cosmos. Her world of painting falls in with the ancient Chinese teaching of “painting being the painting of the soul”, whereas the bright colours, the gem-like lustres and the tranquil and transparent ink wash reflecting the soul of the artist: joyful, straightforward, confident, detached, and never blue, gloom, turbid or vulgar. She does not paint with a “persona mask”, and it is therefore only natural that her painting resembles her personality.
　　Angelique Shidi paints with watercolour paper and colours rather than rice paper and Chinese painting colours, and the frequent fine lines are drawn with a hard pen instead of a writing brush, both of which have rendered the tension formed among the ink, colour, brush and paper, an outward orientation that is quite divorced with traditional ink and wash painting that uses rice paper, pursues calligraphic brushwork and an inwardly infiltrating tension. This style is both modern and oriental, with abstract expressionistic passion and candor, while not lacking the obscurity and elaborateness of the Chinese art. The holistic cross-cultural bearing of the painting, which seems to have flown out spontaneously, has won appreciation and acclaim from professionals and amateurs both at home and abroad. It is in this sense that Angelique Shidi’s painting labels a new landscape in the communication of modern art and culture.
　　　　　　　　　Lang Shaojun　Art critic, researcher at China Art Research Institute

作者：Shaojun　Lang