The artistic creation is a kind of Salvage process with our own feeling, to give expression to the inexplicable emotional life, of course it will not be a simple kickoff , and frequently needs to be calculated to hone and precipitation after a long time. Artist Ma Jie in his artistic creation career，who has experienced in life, multiple fission. Ma Jie grows up as a wild state of artists, the road to the art is much harder than those trained artists more. In fact,Ma Jie Has not been active in the art arena for a long time, instead walked through the business world and engaged in the specific social practice work. But nonetheless, he was affected by his father who used to be the fine art worker, and he spent his childhood to learn the painting foundation in the youth palace , Ma Jie has never given up his artistic ideal, as long as he had a free time he would enter into his artistic creation and navigate into the art world. Around 1990, Ma Jie alone set out for Dunhuang Mo Kao Grotto studying dunhuang frescoes, started to make the in-depth research in Chinese traditional mural art system. It was a logical starting point of Ma Jie’s art life, not only guided his later artistic creation to the inheritance and founding of traditional context , more important is that to let him understand the religious world of the phoenix nirvana, thus he has transcended the life afterwards, and continous fission of artistic language and style.

　　Around 2007, Ma Jie completely put down his business, settled in eastern suburb of Songz huang art district in Beijing, became a professional artist. Because the changing of the identity, plus Songzhuang is away from the hustle and the bustle of Beijing city, So Ma Jie did has more leisure time to observe life, think about life and art. According to Ma Jie’s disclosure, his original "fission" series were breeding to mature, owing to his careful observation of life. That's because inspired by a pomegranate tree in his yard. Because of pomegranate itself would split short after growing mature, revealing the grain like gems glittering and translucent It could give a person a kind of sweet sensual pleasure. But when fruits are cooked enough falling down to ground ,it will attract ants or flying insects to result erosion till decay then become another unsightly residue. Such a sharp contrast would cause Ma Jie to falling into a reverie, he recalled the development process of human history, because of grabbing the land, food and interests etc, to kill each other brings grief situation, also makes him seem to see a the ecological food chain of nature, suddenly understand the rendering in the religious world of death and rebirth... the Work "fission" series was born with Ma Jie’s observing and thinking about life of life, although he was inspired by the pomegranate in the yard, but behind is imbued with Ma Jie’s life awareness, but in fact his full-time art creation is a kind of cultural reflection about the past, also contains the Ma Jie’s transmutation of art life.

　　In the Ma Jie "fission" series of works, there are two humanoid symbols throughout the works. However, they are not flesh and blood body, but only two skeleton withgrim and corrosion. This "cemetery Complex” origins from Ma Jie’s growth experience. It is said that Ma Jie grew up in Taiping lake area of Beijing, which was located by the city walls of old Beijing, there was the famous Qing dynasty tombs nearby, several Manzhouli warriors were buried in the past, so also known as "small Buddhist paradise". Since 1949, although small Buddhist paradise has been incorporated into the city and set up factories there, but in the childhood of Ma Jie, Taiping lake still existed. During the period of "cultural revolution", the big Qingxi movement swept across the country, some people could not bear the cruel persecution, ultimately chose to suicide in despair, including famous writer Lao she, a lot of people drowned themselves in Taiping lake. Although born in 1963, Ma Jie was still young during the period of "cultural revolution", but also because their parents were persecuted and belonged to the kind of people which need to be washed, so the misery history is the overwhelming unforgettable experience to him. Later Ma Jie found himself an exit out of the art, through the brush to express the suffering heart with depression, Did he realize human's bitter and sorrow prematurely? We don't know. But one thing is certain, Ma Jie is sensitive about death breath, I think the unique growth experience has a direct relationship with him.

　　Of course "Fission" series are not all Ma Jie’s capture of his own childhood memories, but the life comprehension of his later life, includes transcending himself.In this way, although this batch of works showed some death scene but without choking feeling and sense of despair. Instead, the ferocious image, the coarse and firm strokes, which bring people more sense or the colors of life and emotional agitation. From which we can read the Ma Jie artistic pursuit, if he was only linked to Dunhuang Mo Kao Grottoes Murals once more, actually it is a spiritual pursuit of "Put to death and epigenetic". It is such a kind of appeal which caused Ma Jie to leave business and dedicate himself to the art world, it is the precise appeal which makes Ma Jie’s art to strip away the surface of the reality and enter into the more secretive inner world that occurs countless ties with Chinese traditional art.

　　In fact, Chinese traditional art is the art which towards the psychological comfort, especially the "literati painting", from leisure brush strokes it expanded into a spiritual world garden of beach garden, it has also placed the countless soul of the bitterness and the helpless. Ma Jie left out of business world and fully dedicated himself to art creation, he is bound to choose more pure forms, this is the reason of his fascination with the expressionism and abstract art. At the same time, due to early receiving enlightenment in Dunhuang murals, he had the most conscious understanding the ideology of in the religious world for the disillusionment and the thoroughly samsara. So he regards the "fission" as the art theme to express, not only to criticize the conflict of human society, but hopes to be able to extract sprouts from the broken reality and the despair of death, also secrete a kind of new life . This kind of fight and hard work are like rescued from desperation, just as the traditional Chinese literati open up a pot world from the reality of the world,which also destines Ma Jie to pursuit in art, Not the end at "fisision" ,but will pass the fission to open one door of knowledge and to touch a more rich spirit world.

　　In recent works, Ma Jie seems to go through his journey to death, to regain the new birth of the art, both sensibility and expression are more penetrating and more freewheeling. First of all, his art theme is no longer constrained by death and the content of the corrosion and completely out of his own childhood memories, but in relation to the wider historical culture, and the writing brush reaches out to the colorful inner world; Secondly, on the means of expression, Ma Jie is liberated from the limitations of brushes and paints and heading for composite materials,especially his treasured possessions and collections for many years，such as ancient ceramics, old wood, old pipe, and even jewelry and jade article etc..which are broken, or modified, pasted and joined together to his own images, This way not only makes his art for acquiring the thickness of the language and the tension of the performance, but also with the Chinese traditional context, and closely linked to the broken contemporary reality. At this point, Ma Jie went through his phoenix nirvana in art creation, he began to jump from little Wo to big Wo, the art works has changed from personal experience into the spirit of The Times with the more rich humanistic connotation and the more magnificent language imposing manner.

　　Inspired by pomegranate tree in his garden, associated with human conflict, touched his own eerie childhood memories, and captured the corrosion and the smell of death in the art then to the phoenix nirvana and the epigenetic demands, created some majestic and distinctive eerie works... Ma Jie’s artistic exploration is in the process of fission, just like aggregation and separation in the human history reflect some kind of paradox of civilization. Actually, History is neither in progress nor backwardness, only existence rationality, whether can give people’s survival with more satisfaction and happiness. For contemporary people, the unfortunate tragedy is in the progress of every crack,It leads us to the development road of no return with the name of some kind of "modernity", then lose our homes. Ma Jie’s art is in such a lost culture, and childhood memories bring him in the shadow of death, make him feel the broken reality with deeper feelings. He absorbed nutrients in the Dunhuang murals in the early days, not only to get the art language of enlightenment, but also in order to get traditional culture comfort and spiritual consolation. It is the cultural roots that drives Ma Jie later leave business for artistic creation, settle in SongZhuang art willage, become a professional artist; Artistic creation is also this kind of appeal which causes Ma Jie’s artistic creation in continuous self fissions transcends the disturbance of real society, and more profoundly to the scholar world after the collapse, how to rebuild the spirit space of culture proposition in modern China.

In Tongzhou

March 2013

作者：杨卫