Exactly 20 years have passed since the completion of Life, my first abstract painting, in 1992.
　　I remember that I was often doubtful about my aptitude for drawing in the first years after I began to learn to draw because of my failure to do a drawing as true to life as those of Pavel Petrovich Chistiakov. Fortunately, I became confident again when I came across some Impressionist and Modernist works soon and realized that there were other possible ways in doing a painting.
　　I started to take entrance examinations of art academies in 1978 and took those examinations once and again in the following six years until 1984. I simply cannot bear to recall those years… Repeated failure made my father and other members of my family sink into despair again and again, but there was no other way out for a child born in a peasant's family than keeping trying. During those six years I wandered with my dream of art from Anyang, Xi'an, to Beijing for the pursuit of art and was eventually lucky enough to be admitted to the Oil Painting Faculty of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art).
　　In the 1980s, the Chinese society was undergoing profound changes both politically and economically. Shortly before and after entering the academy, I was obsessed with the works of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Later I made an intensive study of the Taoist philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi and the Confucian school of idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming dynasties, and now I am to some extent converted to Buddhism. Once I had such a special fondness for the Impressionists Claude Monet and Cezanne that I even wrote "Little Net" or "Zannece" as my signature on some of my works. Later when I was in my third year at the academy, I was also strongly attracted to the works of Matisse, Giacometti and De Kooning. In need of a deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture, in the second term of the second year, I started to immerse myself in an extensive study of Chinese art, focusing attentively on the works of such artists as Tao Shi, Badashanren and Binhong Huang. During the last year at the academy, my thought and interest were entirely focused on the Buddhist culture and the exploration of mentality.
　　In May 1985, Mr. Wou-ki Zao was invited to give lectures on oil painting at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts for a month. The room where he gave lectures was located on the second floor of the building of the Oil Painting Faculty, and our classroom was on the third floor.  The close proximity allowed me to attend Mr. Zao's lectures conveniently and learn his painting techniques and artistic ideas at a very short distance. This experience had an influence on my future path of art to some extent.
　　From September to October in 1987, I visited many regions inhabited by Tibetans in Qinghai and Tibet, where I witnessed and felt the power of faith.
　　Although I engaged in performance art, earth art and installation art for a few years after graduation, I returned to easel painting in 1994 and began to explore abstract art, which I am still exploring today.
　　In recent years, I have been having lots of thoughts on art in general. Here are a few excerpts, which may reflect my mental process in the exploration of art.
　　The structure (grammar) of a written language is rigid and conventional, while that of the language of painting is private.

　　If there are also rules in the language of painting, then the attribute of its rules is uncertainty. He who paints according to rigid rules is not an artist but an artisan-painter.
　　One's usage of a language reflects his understanding of the world. Vulgar paintings are similar or alike in the way of using the language of painting while a true master has his own unique and irreplaceable way of using the language of painting.
　　Being able to achieve visual realism with a brush can only illustrate one's ingenious techniques and how one is enslaved by objects, yet it cannot necessarily reflect his ability to convey something beyond the object itself. 
　　Do not pay undue attention to a certain technique in the process of artistic creation. There is no one technique that can embody and convey all kinds of meanings, feelings and ideas under all conditions.
　　Form and the original spiritual experience appear simultaneously, not the one after the other.
　　Osho once said, knowledge can be borrowed from others, but truth can only be obtained through your own experience. As a result, I believe that art, something connected with life, can only be achieved through your own experience. An old doctor of traditional Chinese medicine can impart privately to his selected successor a secret recipe handed down in his family from generation to generation, with which his successor may treat his patients. However, unlike the secret recipe, the soul and essence of art cannot be imparted.
　　In recent years, I have often found some typical phrases in prefaces to art exhibitions, for example, someone is the private student or the last student of a certain master, or someone learned art under the tutelage of a certain master. It reminds me of such words as "an old doctor of traditional Chinese medicine" and "a secret recipe handed down in the family from generation to generation".
　　Zen Buddhism, if not understood and experienced within the core of religious spirit, will almost be nothing but a kind of secular culture and a game of concepts.
　　There are many things in the world that go beyond the imagination and explanation in philosophy and physics.
　　Intercultural learning needs an appropriate method. Each culture should preserve its own essence while absorbing the essence of the other culture. We often know quite well about the essence of every culture, but are not very clear about an effective method that can be used to discard the dross of one culture and obtain the essence of another. And we are ignorant all the more about the relation between the essence of this culture and the dross of that culture.
　　The gigantic momentum of Western culture makes it difficult for us to make a practical comparison between the "inherent" historical contributions of the Chinese mode of thinking and those of the Western mode of thinking. If it were possible for the two cultures to develop separately for another several thousand years, then perhaps we may make a decent comparison between them in essence.
　　Chinese art is currently facing two fundamental challenges: what it will contribute to the world today and how it will absorb Western or modern thought.
　　The language of painting can only be realized visually. However, the soul of painting and the spirit of the artist cannot be conveyed in the same way. Painting belongs more to the category of the mind than to that of the senses.

February 24, 2013

作者：Pingjun,Shang