Professor and Art Critic(策展人)

　　Director , National Art Museum of China

　　This catalog is the second of Shidi’s Invisible Wings in the Wind series. Her production poured forth like gurgling spring water in the past two years, giving birth to a big portfolio of new works. Familiar or unfamiliar with her, one feels like entering a mythic and profound world when facing with such a portfolio. Each work unfolded is a segment of nature she plucked at one moment – they come with the wind, graceful and sublime, bringing to the eyes pleasant joy and refreshing touches. All her works combine to form an aura with full vitality and shining splendor, from whence one feels Shidi’s talent and gift in art creation. She is willing to share with others the sunlight, the rain, the dew, the mist, the water and the rosy cloud in the world of her painting. That is exactly a most treasurable quality of art creation - it is a pleasure for one to discover and to express oneself, but it is the fulfillment of this pleasure to have others to share the same and acquire more.

　　Indeed, Shidi paints with joy. For a painter in present day art and cultural context, the most difficult as well as the most adorable thing is to keep the relation between oneself and the painting pure and clean. The painting circle of China today is not only abundant in discussions over various artistic issues and blossoms of diversified artistic ideas, but also closely linked with the development of the international contemporary art scene and thus abounds in experimental explorations. However, Shidi manages to hold on to her persistence to painting and her innocent spiritual home, which gives her the exceptional approaches and forms in painting. In her first catalog of the Invisible Wings in the Winds series, I described her painting as Pure Painting, and in face of her new works, I am convinced that she is adhering to the path of Pure painting, with more mastery and a stronger capacity, accumulated in her practice, in controlling the picture, which again shows a composed bearing accomplished with the full play of her talent and capacity. The highest realm in painting in ancient China is No Hindrance, referring to a smooth and unhindered harmonious relationship reached between the painter and the object he/she depicts, the oneness of the soul and observation, the oneness of the feeling and presentation, and the oneness of the language and the image. It is because Shidi has no intention to get involved in the contemporary debates over painting, and because she does not have to obey all kinds of canons that often hinder the free expression of painting, that she is able to obtain a true freedom in presentation and expression, and to fully present her soul with No Hindrance. Her joy in painting is a disposition of herself as well as a reward for her persevering pursuit of art.

　　I would like to make a brief review of Shidi’s work in terms of Rhyme, Posture, Light and Color, which are the traditional perspectives of criticism in Chinese painting. In the construction of each work, Shidi has apparently grasped the Rhyme of the pictorial composition, and acquired the capability to arrange the pictorial elements in an instinctive moment to produce pictorial Rhythm with dots, lines and planes. In this respect her painting is making progress, and her exploration in pictorial rhythm is leading to a more masterly control of the overall picture. In some big-size works, she is also able to create different rhythms, producing multi-layered, multi-angled yet concerted harmony, as in a counterpoint symphony. Her painting is rich in images associated with things in nature, yet they are not the real looks of the natural objects, but imageries from nature. She has spent a lot of time trying to feel and comprehend nature, but barely does she directly depicts nature. Instead, she transforms her sensations in nature into feelings and personal cultivation; hence her brushwork always abounds in formal pictorial language, which constitutes the distinct Mental Posture in each piece of her work.

　　The Light in Shidi’s painting may be seen as an extremely remarkable character in her art. With years of exploration and experiments, she is fully aware that the spirit of Light must be manipulated for a painting on paper to render visually striking effects on the viewer. As a result, she employs alternating layers of thick and thin colors and the technique of repeated glazing and water wash, lending to a poised and rhythmic contrast between the empty and the solid in the pictorial space, and leaving vivid paths for the interpenetration and traversing of the light. Thus, with her arrangement, either abundant light permeates and envelops the whole picture, or only one line of light illuminates the chaos like thunder and lightening…Thanks to the language of Light, Shidi’s paintings are filled with a glowing atmosphere, which is exactly the portrait of her transparent soul. On the other hand, in the field of Color, the most complex element in painting, she seems to have the gift of self-enlightenment, rendering impressive Colors at every random stroke. Her feeling to color seems to be almost a born talent, and it may seem proper to say that it is for the sake of expressing her feeling to color that she is led to the road of painting. She is capable of exploiting the different tonal orientations and color ranking, and she brings the Ink Color in Chinese painting into her color system and infuses a demeanor of Chinese art into her work.

　　Reviewing Shidi’s painting from the perspectives of Rhyme, Posture, Light and Color does not mean to position her painting in the domain of traditional Chinese painting - right on the contrary, those elements are essential ones in modern abstract painting. Shidi’s painting belongs to the category of abstract painting, and her endeavor in these fields and the attainment she has achieved suggest the accomplishment of a Chinese painter, particularly a female painter, in contemporary painting. It is important to point this out, and in Shidi, a painter who is hard to be classified into any one school, and who creates abstract painting with Chinese ideas, surprise and joy are what we feel. Let us go back to the starting point of her art to understand her art: and that is her sensitive and rich soul.

　　It is my wish that Shidi’s art be understood from the relationship between Chinese art and contemporary painting, and it is my belief that her art will be broadly appreciated in cross-cultural communications.