“飞翔”与“跨越”既是李继森作品中的鲜明图像，也是他心中持续的纠结。细细的想想，李继森画中的人物，为何睁大了圆目，四处搜寻与遐想，即使在卫生间里也无法停止在时光流逝中的无奈与冥思。其实，这真是我们这个时代一些不安现状、自找苦吃的艺术家的真实写照。

 

想到过河，我们既可以有“雄纠纠、气昂昂，跨过鸭绿江”式的革命豪情，也可以有“人不能两次淌过同一条河流”的玄奥哲思。前者在空间中具有物理性的踏实感觉，后者却是一种超越时空的永恒想象，在物质与精神的层面上，在肉身的沉重与灵魂的飘逸之间，现代人却总是不甘寂寞，于一阵轻风之中，听涛声依旧；在童年的摇马上，手挥木刀，追寻现代社会的英雄。

 

古典主义的英雄是那些舍生取义，重情有神的传奇人物，现代社会的英雄是精明有道，巧取豪夺的物质大亨。但在工业化的今天，古典英雄的退场早已尘埃落定，现代英雄的堕落也只在朝夕。在李继森的作品中，那些飞翔的人、对弈的人、游戏的人，吸烟的人，都处在一个时代背景不明的时空中，红色的幕布喻示了他们都是人生舞台上的表演者与过客，他们对于角色的倾情投入和出离反思，表明我们对于人生目的和真实性的向往已经成为奢华的梦想。在这里，行为者和观察者融为一体，信仰与怀疑成为一个硬币的两面，油灯的照亮与熄灭是一个并行的过程，前进与后退在同一个时间之轴上互为表里。

 

李继森以他鲜明的人物塑造方式，不仅为我们制造了一种他所特有的人物图像符号，也创造了一种在他内心中生成的超现实景象。这样的人造场景，形成了与自然景物的强烈对比，在室内空间或心理空间中，画家表达了现代人与历史和时代的背景脱离。看来李继森不喜欢线性的叙事方式，他的作品中也没有经典的情节表述，他作品中的人物，可以在不同的时空中遨游，成为我们时代的一个彩色的幽灵。李继森持续地工作，让我们的眼睛收藏他的这些大眼符号，这意味着我们在收藏一种时代的气息。李继森试图运用一种无序的叙事方式，将一些并无关联的事物、记忆、个人经验等，转换为一种清晰可见的舞台图像，但是这些清晰的图像所给予我们的，却是十分复杂暧昧的瞬间心绪。

 

在一个高效率的工业化、信息化社会，我们生活在“物”与“象”的包围之中，物质与图像成为我们时代的消费主流，“观看”与“渴望”已经成为我们日常生活中的持续梦魇。我们无法回绝四下涌来的图像所发出的观看的邀请，一如我们无法拒绝无所不在的广告植入我们心中的消费欲望。持续的观看导致我们的眼睛的进化，睁大的眼睛却只能看到身边的变化而对远方的地震冷漠麻木。电视与电脑在扩展了我们对世界的认知空间的同时，也大大弱化了我们对世界的认知能力。李继森的作品，反映了工业社会中个体与群体的纠结关系，在个体的理想与群体的信仰之间，在海量信息的传播与紧迫生存的拼搏之间，今天的人创造了他们伟大的现实，这个“伟大的现实”将越来越多的人转换为平面的人、雷同的人、空洞的人，不断地将充满个性的人吸纳进巨大的平庸人群。

 

    追随李继森和他笔下的“当代英雄”，我们能否获得“信仰的力量”？虽然脖子扭的生疼，我们能否在天空中看到未来？在历史与现实之间，跨过画布上虚拟的心河，我们将走向何处？李继森慷慨给予我们的，却是一大堆问题而非答案。

 

 

                                                              2011年3月

 

Crossing the River of Heart: the work of Li Jisen

Yin Shuang-xi

 

“Flying” and “crossing over” constitute Li Jisen’s signature motifs.  They also stand for the continual struggle taking place in his heart.  When I reflected on the figures in Li’s work, I was puzzled by their wide-eyed stare.  I searched everywhere and fancied all manner of possibilities, even while I was in the bathroom.  Time was passing and I couldn’t d stop brooding about it.  As a matter of fact, this is a true depiction of those artists today who are dissatisfied with the way things are and only make trouble for themselves.   

 

When thinking about crossing a river, we may either experience the revolutionary spirit of “marching over the Yalu River with a valiant and courageous spirit”, or, more philosophically, that “one cannot step into the same river twice”.  The former has a feeling of space occupied by something tangible and solid.  The latter, on the other hand, is time-transcending eternal imagination.  Whether material or spiritual; the weight of the physical body or the etheric soul; contemporary man cannot tolerate being alone.  Just like always, the light breeze carries the sound of surf to our ears; the child, sitting astride his rocking horse, flourishes his wooden sword, looking for heroes in today’s society.

 

    Legendary heroes found in the classics are those who prefer honor to life, or are loyal and vigorous.  Modern heroes are those material tycoons who are shrewd, and will do anything to get what they want.  In this industrialized society, it is inevitable that classic heroes must disappear, while modern heroes will sooner or later fall on hard times.  In Li Jisen’s work, those human figures, whether flying in the air, playing chess, playing games, or smoking, are placed against an ambiguous space/time background.  The red curtain symbolizes that these figures are performers and transitory actors on the stage of life.  Their total commitment to the role they play and the absence of self-examination signifies that our yearning to find out the purpose and truth of life has already become a luxurious dream.  At this point, the actors and the audience have come together as one; faith and doubt have become two sides of the same coin.  The act of lighting and extinguishing an oil lamp are two aspects of a single function; moving forward and backward on the same time line, are closely related.      

 

Li Jisen’s manner of vividly creating human figures not only produces unique symbolic human images for the viewer, but also forms a surreal landscape in his own mind.  This kind of artificial scene contrasts sharply with the natural background.  In both the interior space and psychological space, the painter has expressed the separation between modern men and history or past eras.  It seems Li Jisen dislikes linear narrative and no classic plots are found in his work.  The human figures in his paintings roam freely in different space/time spectrums, becoming colorful phantoms in our time.  Li Jisen’s creative continuity allows us to take in the symbolism of large eyes.  It means we are collecting a sense of time.  Li Jisen tries to use disordered narrative to transform these unconnected objects, events, memories, or personal experiences into a clear stage image.  Nevertheless, these clear images instantly convey a very complex and ambiguous thought.

 

In this highly efficient, industrialized society where information is easily obtained, we are surrounded by “material objects” and “images”, and they have become the main stream of consumerism.  “Watching” and “desire” have become a continuing nightmare in our daily life.  We can neither say “no” to those images that swarm around us, demanding our attention, nor those omnipresent advertisements, planting in our mind the desire to buy.  Our eyes evolve through this continual observation, but the wide-open eyes can only see the changes around us but remain cold and unfeeling to distant earthquakes.  While television and computers have expanded our worldview, they have weakened our ability to understand the world.  Li Jisen’s work reflects the tangled relationship between the individual and the collective in this industrialized society.  People of today have created a “great reality” between individual ideals and collective belief; between the massive information communication and the difficult struggle for survival.  This “great reality” has transformed more and more people into one-dimensional, indistinguishable, empty men, and continues to absorb people of unique character into its great mass of mediocrity.           

 

    Will we be able to obtain the “power of faith” by following the “modern heroes” created by Li Jisen’s paintbrush?  Bending our necks at an odd angle is immensely painful, but can we see the future in the sky?  Where are we heading once we cross the virtual river on the canvas that divides history and reality?  Li Jisen has liberally provided us with a great quantity of questions but no answers. 

 

 

March, 2011

 

 

 

作者：殷双喜