Preliminary Research
Printmaking works – Natural Instinct
In general, puppies are considered lovely and loyal, monkeys naughty and pigs stupid. Animals express their instincts more directly than humans do, so compared with human, they have more direct and undisguised nature. Claborate-style paintings by Shen Ning have long been what I model my paintings on. Through aesthetic combination of animals and the human body in his paintings, Shen uncovers the nature of life in an absurd manner and reveals the truth implicitly. His style shows traces of influence of Aubrey Beardsley, a British illustrator, whose paintings underscore absurdness, decadence and eroticism.
"Zebra"
"Zebra” is a piece of work I drew after reading Zahiram Dodo’s essay When You See My Life Blossom”. In the essay, she said “we are all zebras, with the nature of unbounded joy, of pure kindness, of solemnity, wisdom, mercy, strength and all that is glorious. Yet, trouble is just some temporary stripes, which though so vivid and connected with the skin when looked at, have never really be part of us. ” When reading this, I drew a black-striped zebra. Maybe it’s an omen that I am in fact a white-striped zebra who needs enough white stripes to become white. Though I was not born smart and I have been not very optimistic, I have learnt how to be kind and how to become smarter as I grow up, working hard to increase my white stripes to cover up the black background.
"Hope" "Life Goes On"
Sense of literature is the most fundamental thing in paintings, and painting is to express feelings. In the mid-20th century, Qingyao (a famous Chinese romance writer) and Wang Guozhen (a famous Chinese poet) have been model examples for expression of feelings, and such aesthetic expression was like the bond between the puppy and its master as shown in my painting “Hope”; However, in the end of the 20th century, art works begin to explore the evil side of human. For instance, works by Shen Ning and Auberey Beardsley reveal the evil nature of human, like my painting “Life Goes On” which shows beauty through contrast with evil. Time passes and people change. Maybe artists already sensed the evil side earlier but lacked the courage to give it expression; as time moves on, artists no longer flinch. Prosperity of contemporary art and conceptual art give the artists a broader platform to express their own feelings and ideas.