Taking a look at Chen Shuxia’s recent works, wewill experience a trip in summer shallow sea withour eyes and bodies. We will even have a dream toclimb on the top floor of the high buildings afterthe night fair in midsummer is over, look out overthe glittery lighting distance away and recall thepast days and friends out of contact in a corner ofthe city, with a cool breeze passing by the nakedshoulders.
 　　It is the whole impression gained from ChenShuxia’s recent works. Plain life and familiarscenes in continuous observation and untiringdescription just become so strange to me. She eversaw a certain kind of familiarity and reliabilityunder the strange sky of Yunnan province, thenshe called it “virtual turn into real calmly”. Butwhat I saw in her works was her perception andsurpassing of reality.
　　 Between the virtual and real situations, ChenShuxia gained a balance of neither friendly noraloof and nor giving up. She called it choice with noalternative. Actually it all came from her clingingpersonality coverd by her gentle and cultivatedappearance. In her own view, the touching pointsin life may be some specific people and things toothers, but to her may be the sky and the nature.Most people are either dragging out their ignobleexistence, or criticizing the reality, evasion andresponsibility make people perturbed and uneasy.But Chen Shuxia’s pur sual of truenes s andbrightness in the canvas is just a kind balance oflife and art.
　　Facing with the life, everyone has his or herbasic guide line. Chen Shuxia treats everythingin life with a “mild and placid” heart, which isshown as close to the nature but surpassing itin her art creations. Therefore, there is neitherhoarse shouting nor cold and ruthless reality inher art, but her personality and ego in “hazy andhollow mountains”, which show her elegance andeasiness.
    Britisch Philosopher Popper thought that the musicof Beethoven was a tool of self presentation andhis works lively showed his belief, hope, secretdream and desperate and brave fight, while that ofBach “objectively” presented the glory and spiritof the God, with works completely anatta. In ChenShuxia’s works, she meant not to make herselfwidely know, but tried to reveal her hope, dreamand attachment to beautiful life everywhere. If sayfemale artists are good at instinct and sensibility,so does Chen Shuxia, who is only passionate abouta small concept that one can be some kind shereally hopes to be.
　　The fruits and female figures in her paintings areseemingly at variance but actually in harmony,as the Dasein of life connect countless past andfuture, jointly gestating certain unknown infinite.In her works, she repetitively describes fruits andgirls, presenting continuous time through a coexistingway. At certain moment of life, thesefruits and girls will become different expressionsof life, all assembled in her canvas. Apple becomesthe portrait of a girl, who is right the fruit of life;Infinite past here becomes the end-result, fromwhich the infinite future starts.
　　 If based on this we consider Chen Shuxia a personwith profound rethinking of human’s situations likePaul Gauguin, then it is another misunderstandingof her. Chen Shuxia is not a person good at rethinking,but a female with no thinking. “Rethinking”is repetitive thinking where come andwhere to go, while “no thinking” means trying allmeans to fade this question from the memory. Ifshift our questions of life into her paintings to findout the answers, you are just pouring a bucket ofwater into the sea, or just as Chen Shuxia describesin her paintings, a kid jumping into the green lake.The figures of her paintings in my view, whether thegirl washing her foot in water or city white-colarfishing alone in autumn, all contain some profoundsymbolizing meanings, with the original idea to letpeople put down self-clining and turn to insipidityand puerility. If this can be regarded as originatedfrom Chen Shuxia, then the most interestingfeature of her ar t creations is “unconsciousoriginality”. Just like those wash and ink paintingmasters in ancient China, she pursues pure andclean frame of mind to gain spiritual freedom. Shedoes not put the techniques in the first place, butenters her inner refinement through paintings.For such an artist, we can not judge merely by thetechniques.
　　Chen Shuxia makes much of life, fore life is richand changing, affecting her emotions. It is reallyinteresting that sometimes the role of people caneasily be changed with just a flash of consciousnessfrequency. In her own view,“ painting” and“ living”are a pair of parasynonyms, sometimes with clearline, sometime vague.
　　German philosopher Kierkegaard believed firmlythat one can not directly express himself or herself toothers, but should put forward his or her points of viewindirectly just as Socrates did, so that those peoplelistening to his or her lectures may at least not becomethe victim of the influence, but think independentlyunder his or her urgence, then make free choices.Chen Shuxia tries not to teach or entice peoplethrough her works. There is no need of preparationsfor educated or touched by viewing her paintings,just view it silently. In her paintings, there arelonely apples, lost memories, spring in the cup andfaces in the mirror. All these just float in the timespace like the desk carrying the still life in herpaintings or boat in the life river. If view slowlywith a quiet heart, you will follow the heart routeof Chen Shuxia just like returning back to the roadyou just passed, then you will feel the world is sopeaceful and plain, but still interesting.
　　Still Kierkegaard in his diaries wrote: “Everyonehas a seed of modesty innately. Destroying yourmodesty may probably make progress in this worldand come to a successful end---but you will bemissing the immutability forever, but following yourmodesty and experiencing storms in life and finallybe accepted by the immutability.” We everyonehave to take this road---stride over the bridge ofsigh and enter the immutability.
　　“Modesty”, in such a society going after luxury,has already become a rare and lacking humannityresource. Chen Shuxia communicates the meaningsof paintings to our living in her peaceful observationand silence description. The apple in her painting isnot add of life satisfaction in the sense of visual joy,but the painter’s understanding of life.22Today, in the times filled with hallucination andimages, what can painting do? Cezanne told us thatwhat he cared for was not the apple itself, but hisunderstanding and perception of the apple. Maybefilms or TVs are more close to most people, theystill think that life is active images transferredthrough kinescopes by others. Painting has ahistory of over ten thousand years, and will surelycontinue in future. Its vitality is right the strongdesire to express deep buried in those painters.
　　Look around the contemporary painting circles,there are many people admiring by reputation,while few study with great concentration. It issurprising that many painters regard themselves“contemporar y” and “avant-garde” show nointerest in the boundless univer se before us,they just dedicate themselves to several stylizedgraphics chased by the market, copying andproducing in batches untiringly. While that ofschool painting limits the ability of soul to flow inthe space time due to the fix and rigidity of views,though stressing upon the reality seen and beautyof the form.
　　 In recent years, Chen Shuxia keeps away fromthe fashion, intentionally or unconsciously missesthe focus and themes the public concern, whichoffers her chance to further into the original colorof the art. Wandering in illusion and stagnancy inreality make her painful and happy, help her feelthe intimity between life and art and graduallyform her sensitive obser vation, thinking andcommunication of surrounding things. She likes tothink about happy things, to gain inspirations fromlife to understand the meaning of life. Thereforethose broken fragments connect to each other andbecome into her image. She seeks for grey in theflowery colors while looks for vitality in grey, whichis gained through her experiences of normal life andafter disremembrance of pains. She is confidentin integrating the reality of life into enjoyment ofart, as a kind of heart revealing, “a way of quietand calm observation of the world, a kind of poetryand sentiment tangled with reality and personalillusion”. It originates from her love of plain butlasting life and becomes her special emotionalexpressing way, prevailing her art creation processwithout any conditions.
　　For Chen Shuxia, life is always a picture of sceneryand with the time passing by, the scenery in theheart of childhood has gone far and far away, butthe one before the eyes becomes more and moreclear and vivid. The ancient Greek philosopherPlatus thought:“ We can see something not for it isseen, but in the contrary for we go seeing it, then itbecomes something to be seen. ” Whether naturallandscape or cultural sceneries, they will all needto be turned into the sceneries in the painter’sheart to gain the vitality of the art. Apple, haw,lake sceneries and young girls are no longer stilllife, sceneries and figures in tradition, but differentsceneries in the process of life, they interlace witheach other. We have been accustomed to themin daily life but rarely thought about the existingsecret hidden inside. Chen Shuxia re-organizesthem and represents them to us, forcing us tonote and think when meet by chance. In recentyears, her works turn from indoor to outdoor,with more attention to the harmony co-existenceof nature and human, showing a kind of orientalnatural view. From her paintings we can see hergraphic reference from classic landscape paintingsand expressing of artistic conception of boatingon lakes. She stretches the materialism of plainbut meaningful images to lead us understand theexistence. With the time passing by, for ChenShuxia walking forward and chasing after thesceneries, though there is only a neaped boatwithout inverted reflection in water to be seen,she still keep her way on to seek for picturesquesceneries long-expected.　　
　　8th March, 2006
 

作者：Yin,Shuangxi