In 1985, Chen Zhongke was admitted to the Normal Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, majoring in watercolor painting. After a lapse of nearly 40 years, Chen Zhongke returned to his alma mater to hold an exhibition of "Ordinary Beauty". Most of the works on display are small-scale works, nearly 60 pieces, ranging from people, scenes, and things in the streets and alleys, farming scenes, mountain scenes, and local people to bustling ports and city parks. Rich and diverse pictures are presented one by one in Chen Zhongke's pen.
After I was hired as a tutor in the second studio of the watercolor department of the School of Painting of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, I currently have three tasks to do, the first is to hold an academic lecture, the second is to undertake part of the teaching courses, and the third is to carry out this exhibition. The purpose of this exhibition is to report to my alma mater all my academic achievements since I graduated in 1989, and to submit my answer sheet to my alma mater. Chen Zhongke said.
The answer is certainly excellent. Chen Zhongke is now a well-known watercolor painter in China, a member of the Chinese Artists Association, a visiting scholar of the Chinese Academy of Arts, and an associate professor employed by the Watercolor Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, the Academy of Fine Arts of South China Normal University, and the School of Fine Arts of Guangdong Second Normal University.
Chen Zhongke. Discover the beauty of the ordinary.
The theme of this exhibition is "The Beauty of the Ordinary". "Why I choose the beauty of the ordinary, in fact, is to talk about the 70th chapter of Qin Lier's "Lao Tzu": "It is a saint who is brown and jade." —Wearing a rotten dress, but his heart is full of classics. The saint is ordinary on the outside, but he seems great, so everything and the characters I write about are actually very ordinary. A small human movement, a breath, a sneeze, a little bit of something, can show great beauty. ”
How to discover this "ordinary beauty"?Chen Zhongke mentioned that painting and literature pay attention to freshness, which means to find the beauty of the refreshing from the unsatisfactory places that many people look at, and our daily efforts are looking for this direction and looking for different perspectives. This requires the artist's keen observation, to see with his own eyes what others do not think of, and to find beauty in the world that others do not think of.
What's more, can ordinary things be given spiritual meanings, such as Ai Qing's poem "I Love This Land" from the ordinary land to praise the country and the nation. When the country and the nation were in danger, he said that if I were a bird, I would sing with my hoarse throat. Besides, we are human now, because our ordinary world is built by ordinary people. ”
Chen Weihe, former director and professor of the Art Education Research Institute of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, believes that Chen Zhongke's watercolor paintings are taken from ordinary life scenes, but they concisely express the beauty of life and the beauty of the times that move people's hearts. The corners of the villages, the meadows and the countryside ......Scenes of ordinary people and daily life are transformed into heart-warming brushstrokes and shapes, and the eyes are bright and amazed.
He is full of love for nature and life, feeling and discovering the great beauty of heaven and earth;With great energy and time, I threw myself into painting. In his selfless pursuit of the beauty of painting, he discovered the code of art, tasted the happiness of success, and enthusiastically shared his discovery and expression of beauty with his colleagues and students. Chen Zhongke is not only an outstanding professional painter, but also a teacher who uses his brush to enlighten his mind and educate people with beauty, driving more painting lovers to embark on the artistic path of perceiving, discovering, expressing and creating beauty."
The works are related to the times and the masses.
From the works exhibited this time, Huang Qiming, former deputy secretary, vice president and professor of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and vice chairman of Guangdong Artists Association, found that the figures, scenes, and still lifes of the east, west, north, and south of the Chinese land have rich and colorful expressions in Chen Zhongke's works. He believes that Chen Zhongke's works have several characteristics: first, they see the big from the small, and the small works have a big atmosphere;The second is to be eclectic, with diverse and varied techniques and techniquesThe third is to feel and feel, reflecting Chen Zhongke's profound humanistic and artistic accomplishment, and has a strong personal feeling for social life.
Chen Zhongke's work Mother Earth (watercolor) 78cm 108cm was selected for the 13th National Watercolor Painting Exhibition in 2023.
Talking about the works with the times and the masses. Chen Zhongke believes that the birth of excellent works is always closely related to the times, not to satisfy some of his own desires. "For example, now that the national theme does not forget the original intention and keeps the mission in mind, what is good to draw such a theme?I said that there is no need to paint such superficial things like this, we used to have a saying that the Communist Party is like the sun shining until *** bright. Okay, let's draw this. I said that where there is sunshine, there is warmth, and there is love, and I said that there is the grace of the party, so that we can walk and enjoy freely under the peaceful sunshine today. Therefore, even if we do not have a special mark on a certain party constitution, our peaceful life, peaceful pictures, and the fact that we can doze off are all beautiful, and we are all grateful for life and prosperity. ”
In 1989, Chen Chaosheng, vice president of the School of Painting of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, director of the watercolor department, and member of the Watercolor Art Committee of the Chinese Artists Association, was admitted to the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Chen Zhongke just graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Chen Zhongke's graduation work "New Year's Moon" is an influential graduation work after the teaching of watercolor painting courses opened by the Normal Department of Guangmei in 1981, and it is also a model for Chen Chaosheng to know and study "Guangmei Watercolor" at that time.
The color of the picture is full and bright, the spatial structure is rigorous, and it is very visually appealing, and its expression technique is contrary to the thin and elegant light appearance of traditional watercolor, and the color of the pen exudes a sense of hierarchy that is both thick and loud and water-based. The technical language and stylistic form of "New Year's Moon" not only reflect his mastery and excavation of the performance of water-based media, but also make people strongly feel the academic art tradition of Guangmei Watercolor, which focuses on the construction of painting aesthetics and the improvement of quality concepts. This is the deep impression left on me by the watercolor works created by Mr. Chen Zhongke in the early years. Chen Chaosheng said.
Chen Chaosheng believes that Chen Zhongke's solid academic foundation and diligent and persistent creative beliefs have enabled Chen Zhongke to continue to do his own exploration and research during his decades of university teaching career, and it has been fruitful. For more than ten years, Chen Zhongke's high-quality representative works have frequently participated in important exhibitions at home and abroad and won awards. At the same time, he has made many achievements in the teaching and research of watercolor in the college and the creative guidance of the social watercolor group, and his fruitful creative achievements and teaching achievements have made him a very active "water army" leading painter in Guangdong.
In recent years, Chen Zhongke has been a visiting scholar in the studio of Professor He Jiaying of the Chinese Academy of Arts, and under the guidance of He Jiaying, he has conducted a more systematic and in-depth study of the theory and practice of Chinese painting, as well as Chinese and Western painting, which has made a qualitative leap in his watercolor creation and a new breakthrough in concept.
Chen Zhongke's watercolor works boldly integrate the poetic temperament and imagery spiritual connotation of traditional painting, which emphasizes the rhyme of brush and ink and hearty expression, while absorbing the interest of pen and ink expression, it also emphasizes the visual expression of light and color of Western painting and the sense of power of the spatial structure of black, white and gray. As Mr. He Jiaying said in his commentary on his series of landscape creations: "He combines the observation method of Chinese landscape painting with the method of creating 'artistic conception' with the use of brush and ink with the color expression of Western painting, and his works are both proud and unforgetful, and the realism and freehand are integrated."
Chen Zhongke believes that the cultivation of Chinese painters comes from writing, mentioning, pressing, turning, folding, pointing, horizontal, vertical, apostrophe, pinching, hooking, such an aesthetic, Yongzi eight methods, one point is like a mountain falling stone, one horizontal is like a cliff to pull a horse, one vertical is like a hundred-year-old withered vine, a skimming is like a snake falling into the water, a pinch is like a sword and sword shadow, in fact, it is inexhaustible, a point is 100 ways to write, our aesthetics are far richer than Western aesthetic theories, as well as our aesthetic education, Tang poetry, Song Ci, Chinese painting, less is more, weight is light.
We take the strengths of the West and then add our own strengths. For Chinese painting, we are actors, for Western painting we are the audience, the Buddhist scriptures say "the body and the soil are not two", for Chinese art we are native, we Chinese Chinese art is the most suitable for our physique, of course, there is no absolute dividing line between Eastern and Western art, but in general, this group of people here likes this, and that group of people over there likes that, basically there is a little difference, so we use our strengths to improve it and increase its expressiveness, that's all. Chen Zhongke said.
Chen Zhongke's work, Sweeping Wantan Grain (watercolor), 78cm, 108cm, 2021.
Only artistic creation does not waste time.
Wang Haiyan, a doctor from Shanghai Institute of Technology, believes that people who can control their own hearts are a kind of ability, impulse, desire, and unstoppable, which is the divine power beyond this ability, and the feeling of "Tao" is actually very strong and profoundNot exactly. Once this perceptual power is transferred to artistic creation, you will inevitably win a creative war and draw pictures that you can't even believe!
In her opinion, in fact, this is a very unusual creative strength, and excellent painters are often unaware of this magical spirituality and wisdom in him, Chen Zhongke's "Ordinary Beauty" series of works actually implicitly hides such a wisdom and power ......Rough but not frivolous, heavy but not clumsy, the gentlemanly quality of the classical literati, soft but not weak.
Wang Haiyan said: "When we have the ability to "break apart" the painting, what we see is far from a kind of visual intuitive beauty, the black place has its own painter's simple decisiveness, the white place has its own painter's careful layout, the painter's wisdom far outweighs the joy brought by visual aesthetics, so there is wisdom in the painting!."Obviously, Chen Zhongke is using a consciousness that transcends "painting" to express, how can he innovate?The answer is in your own mind and subconscious. Forgetting each other is not to abandon what is already there, but to discover the unknown.
Having worked with Chen Zhongke for more than 20 years, Shu Yanhong, the former vice president of the School of Fine Arts of Guangdong Second Normal University, is still a little excited, a little admired, and a little envious every time he looks at his paintings.
What excites me is Chen Zhongke's painting itself. Seeing his paintings often evokes certain memories in her heart, and also evokes her own yearning for a certain life. "Looking at Zhongke's paintings, it seems to be listening to him say, 'Love life, look, how beautiful life is;'Love yourself, and lo and behold, you have such a beautiful ...... lifeThen my heart will be inexplicably stirred by this, it turns out that the simplicity, the warmth and the simplicity of the truth, is such a great and touching power. ”
What I admire is his understanding. In Shu Yanhong's view, Chen Zhongke was born in watercolor, but he has a wide range of other art types, such as oil painting, printmaking, Chinese painting, and calligraphy. He said that he once thought he had gone astray, but now when he looked back, he found that all the detours had not been in vain.
Li Keran once said that he should hit it with the greatest strength, and he had to hit it out with the greatest strength. It is with his great strength that he dives into the depths of the ocean of art, and then dives out with great strength, and lets all the nutrients brought by this entry and exit serve the creation of his favorite watercolor paintings, so as to form his own unique watercolor personality and language. In addition, it is well-read. In addition to reading art history and painting theory, Zhongke also reads a wide range of books on literature, history and philosophy, so as to better construct his visual world of peeking into the truth of the world. ”
What I envy is his persistence. Shu Yanhong believes that Chen Zhongke's achievements were not achieved early. In the past 20 years, especially in the past 10 years, Chen Zhongke can be said to have devoted all his energy to art. Talk to him for three minutes without leaving art. He believes that "doing everything else is a waste of time, but art is not".
When most of us are torn apart by all kinds of trivial matters, he has always been able to keep this obsession, firm in his artistic pursuit, and now he finally keeps the clouds open and sees the moon, which is enviable. Shu Yanhong said. (Lanka, Li Hong).