Analysis on the life meaning and cultural value in Chen Shuxia's art.

　　To understand and explain the oil painting art of Chen Shuxia in the aspect of Developing History of Chinese Contemporary Fine Arts, I think there are two exhibitions to be mentioned: one is "World Exhibition of Women Artists" held in Art Gallery of China Central Academy of Fine Arts (abbreviated as CAFA) in 1990 and the other is "New Generation Art" held in the History Museum of China, Beijing, China in 1991. Her participation in these exhibitions not only established her status in the developing history of Chinese fine art after 1990, but also basically formed her art direction later on. Fine arts critics Yin Shuangxi believed that Chen Shuxia "intentionally or unconsciously missed the focus and themes the public concern about" in art creation and stresses upon her independent art exploring style; While in my opinion, I would say she always made herself into the mainstream of the times intentionally or unconsciously, her personal interest in the art always formed a kind of resonation with others' artistic explorations and her works could be regarded as the symbolic expression of this times. It was because that the emergence of female art and the appearance of the new generation were right one of the marks showing the end of the 1980s but the entry into 1990s in the developing process of Chinese contemporary fine arts in last century, that, from the times expressing passion and showing suffering consciousness towards the one caring for daily life and expressing the subtle and rich mental world. Here what I want to stress upon is Chen Shuxia's sharpness towards the society and art world she is in as an artist. But one interesting phenomena to mention is that the resonation  between Chen Shuxia's art and the times is right gained from her effort in evasion of the significant events of the times, in apathy of the dramatic political changes and refusal of sketching an ideological China image (this may be the missed focus and themes by Chen Shuxia since 1990 as said by Yin Shuangxi).

　　What Chen Shuxia cares about are common people and things happened in daily life, so she would not have got noticed and succeeded if merely through the value of the objects described in her works as compared with the art on subjects with significant social meanings. It seems a little similar to the situations of Western fine arts after transition from classic arts valuing the social value of the subjects to impressionism caring for people and things in daily life. But the impressionists and post-impressionists changed the developing direction of Western fine art with their new feelings towards the art, whileChen Shuxia's art works won her an independent status in Chinese fine arts history since 1990s with her unusual and magical art creativity.

　　In Chen Shuxia's works, the painting language is first the way to show the secret of object existence, a way offering independence and freedom to the objects. We can also think that Chen Shuxia's art purpose is not to represent objects like flowers, apples and watermelon on the desk in oil painting language, but to free them the desires of people with a unique and strange art form. I think such liberation is mutual, that is to say, on one hand, when Chen Shuxia moulds these objects edible, usable and desirable into art images, they gain their independence and freedom from the relationship with human desires. In Chen Shuxia's words, it is "There is nothing to do before the existence, for it is right the cause, whatever vert or dust". On the other hand, when the objects gain their freedom and liberty, it is the same to the artists and the audience. Specifically speaking, there are also two meanings of liberty and freedom: when objects in daily life gain their independent existence through Chen Shuxia's art creation then we people are liberated from the desire subjects of daily life, becoming the selfless and free aesthetic subject. While for Chen Shuxia, such independence and freedom has further meaning which presents as follows: when Chen Shuxia, as an artist, is inspired or annoyed by certain feelings without any consciousness of the nature of this emotion, it is hard for her to express such depressed feelings in languages (the co-existence of art forms and emotions are right the difficulty of art creation). Therefore, when those feelings hard to get rid of find their accurate art forms, Chen Shuxia also gains her freedom and her joy and happiness gained is hard to express in languages, as I think. It is right in this aspect as artist Collingwood thought that the art expressing the emotions is not abreacting them, but exploring the expressing way of emotions, presenting and confirming them in creative art forms. In this aspect there is no doubt that Chen Shuxia is one of the most excellent contemporary artists.

　　Fundamentally speaking, the uniqueness of Chen Shuxia in the community of the new generation does not refer to her close-up representing of people and things surrounded, but her life experience caring about her own mind world with zero distance. In 1991, Chen Shuxia's first works that brought her fame Pink Flowers gained a Silver Award in the 1st National Oil Painting Annual. This piece of works demonstrated the artist's early art characteristic of still life: delivering the life meaning in flowers in close space. When entering into the 21st century, flowers ever taking a lead in Chen Shuxia's still life was replaced by fruits. I have no idea if in this change Chen Shuxia thought about the following questions: in our daily life, flowers for appreciating have higher value than fruits for eating. For this, I think there are two issues to be noticed:

　　One is the replacement of flowers by fruits. Maybe it was something related to Chen Shuxia's consciousness to weaken her sexual distinction as a female artist. It was known that since the emergence of female art in 90s of last century, flowers were regarded as the metaphor (it was the main feature different from the traditional art way) of female body in many works by female artists, to express the thoughts and psychological experiences of women, or even complain about the oppression they suffered in man power society. The meaning implied here is that even though Chen Shuxia mainly expressed her life experiences through flowers in her works, her focus no longer on flowers (she still draws flowers sometimes), as I thought, had something to do with her emphasis on art surpassing sexual distinction, her hope that the audience only appreciate the works from artistic aspects without any adding of imagination of sexual distinction. If my understanding was reasonable, then the attitude of Chen Shuxia was undoubtfully a break-up with the sexual identification established since participation in "World Exhibition of Women Artists" in 1990.

　　The other is that her evasion of flowers with higher value but choice of common fruits is related to her desire to express new life feelings. Thus it again deepened upon her art exploration in the past. In her works created since last 90s like Flowers Near the Window (created in 1989, earlier than Pink Flowers in 1991), Purple, Red and Grey, Lost Memory, Retain the Sunshine, Soul Mate and Spring in the Cup, the artist described the same situation of all kinds of flowers: lonely, blue and lost. Still remember Freud's view: flowers become more beautiful for their short blooming. Actually, the limitation and loss round-the-clock of life in the time is right the origin of life meaning; also the meaning of the timeliness and historicityof Dasein to life as thought by the existentialism. I think when Chen Shuxia turned to fruits from flowers, besides the effort to dispel the grade difference of objects, the more important thing is to highlight Dasein, that is the deep meaning of life represented in fruits lost in time. If we say when drawing flowers in her works Chen Shuxia made her emphasis on expressing the life meaing in cold and close room space formed in geometric things, then when drawing fruits she mainly focuses on representing the loss of life in time, a unique feeling from perfect to imperfect, from fresh to carious, from existing to disappearing. It is undeniable that the free and relaxing touch, hollow layout, extremely simple image and pure oil painting language in this batch of works show Chen Shuxia's fancy of elegance and neutralized beauty in artistic interest and unusual art sensitivity, but what I think more is her deep expression of life heaviness.

　　When entering into 2002, Chen Shuxia created a series of works combining landscape and figures, showing another significant turning of her art: from infinite inner world to vast natural space, from heaviness of life to happy life and peaceful good life surpassing the Dasein. I don't know whether she consciously accepted landscape art of Chinese literators in this series, especially the influence of Southern School of the Chinese Landscape Painting advocating insipidness and puerility (for example, the composition of That River with Two Banks). But one thing I am sure is that in the works like The Shining Sun, The Ship Named Beloved Wife, Wind Peak, Stone Rain, Sky Rain, Clear Lake, Go Boating and Sky Water, a kind of low-pressure, overweening but anatta life realm was shown before us. It is a pure, natural and na?ve living space within which life has surpassed the limitation of the Dasein and integrated into the nature, co-existed with the world. It means that from the logic of art development, this series have become a symbol of Chen Shuxia's escape from her early life heaviness, or in another word, Chen Shuxia changed another way of life respecting in her unique comprehension of the limitation of life as a modern urbanite: from fussing about to giving up, from clinging to surpassing. Maybe only those happy men and women sitting in their boats playing with water and mountains are peple with real understanding of the meaning of life returning back to the nature.

　　If my understanding of her recent works is reasonable, then I want to further point out Chen Shuxia's return back to traditional Chinese culture in the two meanings--life and art, which was demonstrated in her recent works with a standing of Nature Noumenon respected by traditional Chinese culture to re-think and artistically express human's position in the world and the nature.  Indeed, regardless of our willingness, our living way in reality has already been defined and overwhelmed by western science and technology and material culture. Then the issue that we are consuming acceleratedly the resources based on which our offsprings can survive while fully enjoying the convenient, comfortable and fast life brought by modern civilization turned out. For this, I think Chen Shuxia's recent works returning back to the nature are actually advocating that kind of life attitude of "nature as the basis" already existed in traditional Chinese culture. But in the aspect of visual culture, I think Chen Shuxia, as keeping on oil painting creations, surely knows the fact that Western realistic oil painting art, together with movie and photography, has already dominated Chinese's way of viewing the world. In recent decades, our slogan of oil painting nationalization is to inject Chinese cultural elements in the way of Western viewing. Therefore, I think Chen Shuxia's recent works are extremely successful, for in this series of works, she stressed and highlighted the attitude and standing towards the nature in traditional Chinese culture. Under such spiritual domination, Chen Shuxia naturally turned scenery into mountains and rivers and turned the oil painting materials into a kind of Chinese visual language, turning the Western perspective space into something similar to the flat and deep space representation in traditional Chinese landscape. Just for the above meanings, I believe that Chen Shuxia's recent works will surely play a more and more important role in Chinese oil painting art entering into the 21st century.

Wangjing Garden, Beijing, April 5, 2006

作者：Zou Yuejin