晨光中，知觉把握住世界

　　像手抓住一塊太阳般温暖的石头

　　-《序曲》托斯 ·特朗斯特罗姆 (瑞典)

　　潘曦在绢上画画，她画女人的身体，每一个女人一幅画，她画她们侧着的身体，露着的后背，她画她们开敞的衣衫裸露着的鮮花般绽放的乳头，海棠般嘟噥的嘴唇。女人們鲜活的肌肤优雅地展現在半透明的丝绢上，潘曦为她们画上精致的內衣，金色的花纹，亮丽的蕾丝，而她們雍散的眼神飘然散落在画面之外，神态安逸地沉浸在她们自己的世界里，独处但不寂寞。女人們的神情自我，身体純潔，有着德加筆下的舞女们一样的流暢的身体，卻远离巴黎红磨坊的風塵冥迷；有時她们露着小鸟依人的娇气，有点自憐自愛；有時又豪情熱辣，形体动作充满着性感的诱惑。

　　潘曦的女人們置身在各种顏色和花紋描繪出來的華麗的背景中，背景的強烈和精緻有時甚至會勝過被她寥寥幾筆勾畫出來的女人們身體的輪廓，成為她們纖細骨感，花楚憐人的裸體愛惜的包裹。背景在潘曦的畫中並不只是裝飾，它邀我們進入這些沉浸在自我世界中的女人們的狀態中，夜空一樣的深藍色上綴著繁星點點，幾滴豆蔻色仿佛無意間跌落在畫面的留白處，都讓我們疑惑那隐去面孔的女人此刻的心態。馬蒂斯把跳舞的人放在大色塊裝飾的背景中，人的面孔造型同背景的顏色一起攪動著觀者的視覺，將背景和主題通過色塊上昇到同一高度的美學體驗，馬蒂斯把它叫做“盲眼的美學”[1]。潘曦崇拜馬蒂斯，她的畫裡裝飾性的背景和畫面上的女人同時都在調動我們的各路知覺，但有別與大師的豪爽不拘，潘曦在畫中展現的更是一名女性藝術家的委婉細膩。

　　用水質顏料在吸水的絲絹上作畫，潘曦的藝術中已經包含了許多不可控制的偶發性，這使她的畫乍看有著東方水墨畫的灑脫隨意，但當你仔細品味她畫中的每一點顏色，每一道線條，相互糾結著的重重疊疊卻又儼然是經過了畫家嚴絲合縫的佈局的。這不可預料中的慎密理性是潘曦的畫帶給我們的驚喜。這正是潘曦自己在創作中揣度隨意性和控制性的感受，而這感受恰恰就來源於這她最鐘愛的蕾絲材料，如她所說：“你知道我為甚麼那麼著迷於蕾絲嗎?除了它精緻夢幻的女性特質之外，我深深地被它潛在的重復有序縝密的邏輯所吸引。我迷戀這種嚴密邏輯性的東西，很多東西看似隨意其實不然。”[2]

　　這些承載著潘曦對藝術思考的女人體和藝術家本人一樣置身在溫暖和諧的環境中，身心徜徉在自由中，無論觀者是誰，無論視線來自於何方，潘曦的女人們都是在自娛自樂地享受著她們美麗的存在。潘曦不用模特，每一個女人都是存在在她頭腦中，意想中的，但她起筆描繪她們的時候，這些女人身體的狀態隨時隨地都是在和潘曦的精神狀態相通的。我們可以在每一幅畫中看到一個畫家本人，畫上女人的坐態站姿，撫摸自己身體的手，垂散至肩的髮絲，畫面上的每一團顏色，每一筆線條都真實地承載著畫家的心路。我們的目光跟隨著畫面上女人身體的曲線禁不住舞動起來，心想做這樣的窺視者(voyeur) 是心神愉悅的體驗。

　　潘曦二十多年前在莫斯科從師於俄羅斯最富聲望的壁畫專業大師，以最嚴謹的態度和方式學習了整套西方繪畫傳統，包括她對繪畫邏輯性的感觸無不受益於那時候的藝術啓蒙。潘曦那雙曾經掄著大錘敲打烏拉爾山的曠古岩石來獲得最真實的馬賽克的手，如今撫摸起絲絹來卻是那樣得心應手。用絲絹做材料是幾年前潘曦在畫國畫的父親的書房裡信手拈來的靈感，一塊丟在書桌上的絹讓畫油畫出身的她禁不住就想到把絲絹綳在油畫框上的會是怎樣的效果。一個偶然的跨界域的實驗成了這些年來潘曦繪畫的出發點。但潘曦還不滿足於絲絹帶給她的飄逸的自由，當綳在油畫框上的絲絹畫被裝在潘曦自己設計的透明的有機玻璃盒子的時候，光線穿過薄如蟬翼的畫幅折射到墻面上，顏色漂浮起來了，畫面和光影交錯混合，“裁剪冰綃，輕疊數重”[3] 一件件簡約清麗的絲絹的裝置蕩漾出來宋詞中才有的古雅意境。這也是只有一位諳熟西方繪畫傳統和東方美學韻味的成熟藝術家才能點到的精緻之處。

　　她們选择了美丽，她們选择了性感，潘曦和她画中的女人一樣，用美丽性感演繹著当代女性自信的人生态度。

　　凯梅

　　2011年春，上海

　　关于作者：凯梅，自由艺评人，策展人。苏富比艺术学院当代艺术理论硕士。曾长期居住欧洲，学习艺术史，从事翻译写作工作。近年从北极圈移居赤道，在新加坡生活数年，现居上海。

　　[1] “aesthetic of blinding” 是馬蒂斯1906年提出的一個觀念， 用以回應當年藝評家對他不按常理混色的批評。見《藝術自1900年》，Hal foster, Rosalind Krauss, 2004, Thames& Hudson, P101

　　[2] 選自作者與潘曦的電郵對話，2011年3月14日

　　[3] 出自宋徽宗詞《燕山亭 北行見杏花》

　　I dagars första timmar kan medvetandet omfattar världen
som handen gripa en solvarm sten

　　- Thomas Tranströmer 


　　In the first ray of daylight, consciousness catches the world

　　Like a hand catches a warm stone under the sun

　　- Thomas Tranströmer (Swedish poet)

　　Pan Xi paints women’s bodies with fluid, water-based colour on Chinese silk. Each painting represents one woman. She paints them from their sides and their backs, their sensual breasts and rosy nipples exposed to us from behind open shirts. Their body gestures, caught by the transparency of Chinese silk, are immaculate. They are dressed and yet undressed. Pan Xi paints beautiful clothes for them—gold and white lace in elegant patterns. Sometimes the lace is tight, as if part of the skin, revealing more than concealing the body. Sometimes it falls in the background like extravagant drapery, expanding the space of the subject. The women sink in their own worlds, not responding to whoever gazes at them - from whatever direction. They are self-contained, alone but not lonely. The smooth and fast drawn lines that embrace their bodies remind one of the endless images of women in action in Degas’ world, but the purity within their bodies marks their existence as significantly different from the steamy hot Paris brothels. Nevertheless, the seduction embodied in their gestures and actions is both sophisticated and sexy.

　　The women in Pan Xi’s paintings are also submerged in colourful and complicated backgrounds; backgrounds so well painted that sometimes they overtake the simplicity of the woman’s couture and become an extended second skin. We see golden lace with intricate patterns floating between a woman’s body and the night-blue ,dark background. Crimson drops, as red as the woman’s nail colour, spread all over on a white background in a seemingly casual manner. Pan Xi pays strong attention to creating such backgrounds. They are like the colouristic summons in Matisse’s paintings, causing our eyes to spin and engaging our full visual attention in what he called an experience of “aesthetic blinding”. [1] The women in Pan Xi’s paintings often have their faces obscured or hidden; however, we sense their self-indulgence in a very pleasant manner precisely by merging our viewing of the women with the complex backgrounds that surround them. As a great admirer of Matisse, Pan Xi tries to modulate her master’s skills with her female sensitivity. Her paintings stir up our visual experience more delicately than the great master.

　　With water-based pigment on water-absorbing Chinese silk, there is already unpredictable spontaneity in the process of painting, but Pan Xi has more logical thinking behind each composition and each colour combination in her paintings. She received her professional artist training in Russia twenty years ago when the old-schooled academic guideline was still dominated by a more austere tradition. Perhaps the Western art training also helped to build up the rational way of thinking in her creative process. She sees this logic in the very material that she loves, namely, the lace. “You know why I am so fascinated by the lace?’ she asks. “Except for its female delicate characteristic, I am more attracted by the repetitive intertwined patterns that show so much rationality behind its disorder and complicity. I love such complicated logic: underneath each act of spontaneity, there is always logic.” [2]

　　The women in Pan Xi’s paintings are surrounded by a warm and intimate environment just as the artist is. They enjoy the total freedom to be themselves in their private space. Pan Xi does not use models. She painted the women that have always existed in her own mind with confidence and self-contentment. She exists with them in their aloneness and in their day-dreaming. Their state of mind eventually is hers. In this classical keyhole setting of the images, we watch these women staring at their own image in the mirror, their hands moving across their own bodies and their fingers twisting in their hair. We are the voyeurs utterly enjoying what we see.

　　Twenty years ago, Pan Xi followed the Russian master of monumental murals, Professor V. N. Chelombiev, to study mural painting. She had to approach art from the very essence of art making; with a heavy hammer in her hand, she learned to make perfect mosaic out of rocks from the Ural mountains. Those very delicate hands of hers would feel much more at home when she came across a piece of Chinese silk on her father’s painting desk two years ago. Pan Xi’s father paints traditional landscape paintings with ink on rice paper. Silk is the material used to mount the fragile rice paper. When she touched the soft silks, she immediately wondered how it would be to paint on them. Her professionalism, based on the study of oil painting, allowed her to imagine how paintings on silk would look when stretched and mounted on frames. It was a successful experiment; one that offered her a new starting point in her artistic pursuit.

　　Pan Xi feels the freedom of dropping colour on the water-absorbing silk, and she controls such spontaneity with her refined logic. She designed the transparent acrylic glass frames in which to install her paintings. When light moves through the clear frame and passes by the silk painting, the interplay between the light, the shadow and the colour on the silk all become integral parts of the whole aesthetic experience. In the manner of a classic Chinese poem: like layers of ice-white silk cut into countless pieces, [3] the metaphor of silk written by the poet emperor of the Song Dynasty brings psychological calmness and sentimentality.

　　She chooses to be beautiful and she chooses to be sexy; she chooses to make her art the same. This is the very confidant attitude towards life of a mature, Chinese female artist in our contemporary Chinese society.

　　by Kaimei Olsson Wang

　　About the writer: Kaimei Olsson Wang is an independent art writer and curator. She has a MA on contemporary art in the Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She has lived near the North Pole for many years before she relocated to the equator for a change. She lives with her family in Shanghai now.

　　[1] Matisse used the notion of “aesthetic of blinding” in response to critiques of his style of swirling background and figures in a blurred and blinded experience. See “Art Since 1900” Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss and more, 2004, Thames& Hudson, P101

　　[2] Email communication between the writer and Pan Xi, 14th , March, 2011.

　　[3] From Zhao Jie, last emperor of Song Dynasty“ Yanshan Pavilion, En route to the north encountering apricot blossoms”

作者：王凯梅