The concept and purpose of Shi Liang s paintings

Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-03-01

Shi Liang. Born in Shandong in 1963, he graduated from the first studio of the Oil Painting Department of the ** Academy of Fine Arts in 1988, graduated from the master's course of the Oil Painting Department of the ** Academy of Fine Arts in 1996, and studied in the Advanced Research Class of Oil Painting of the ** Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. He used to teach at Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, ** Academy of Fine Arts High School, and now works at the Chinese Academy of Arts. He used to be the vice president of the China Oil Painting Academy and the current deputy director of the Academic Committee. He went to Europe in 2001, Russia in 2002, Russia in 2003, France in 2006, France in 2011, Antarctica in 2011 and the United Kingdom in 2012. In 2016, he went to Spain for an investigation. In 2017, he visited Italy. In 2018, he visited Italy. In 2008, he toured museums in the United States. In 2019, he went to Italy for an exhibition. Collection: National Art Museum of China, ** Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition Hall, Long Museum, Beijing Century Art Garden, Taiwan Changliu Art Museum, China Association and other domestic and foreign institutions widely collected.

Publications: Illustrated Guide to Chinese Contemporary Artists, Chinese Oil Painting, Complete Works of Chinese Modern Art. Oil Painting Scroll", "New Figurative Art - Between Reality and Heart", "Chinese Oil Painting Human Body 1990-1999", "Chinese Oil Painting Literature", "Chinese Art", "Shi Liang Oil Painting Collection", "Art Attention-Chinese Oil Painting Masters (Volume 2)", "Chinese Realism School 2008 - The Fifth Anniversary of Chinese Realism School", "Chinese Realism School VI, VII, 8th Anniversary Edition", "Library Art", "Chinese Contemporary Oil Painting", "100 Works of Young and Middle-aged Oil Painters", "Complete Works of Chinese Contemporary Art", "Selected Shi Liang Painting Collection of Chinese Oil Painters", "Art Concern", "Calligraphy and Painting Collection", "Everyone", "Fine Arts", "Chinese Classic Oil Painting", "Jiangsu Pictorial", "Art Circle", "Gallery", "Cloud", "HI Art".

Do Not Move - 180cmx260cm - 2008.

Indecent Look-180cmx260cm-2008.

Indecent Smell - 180cmx260cm - 2008.

Indecent Speech - 180cmx260cm - 2008.

The concept and purpose of Shi Liang's paintings

Wen Gong is positive.

In the past 100 years, the influence of Western realism on Chinese art has been mainly manifested in figure painting. This has to do with the decline of figure painting after the Tang Dynasty, but also with the qualities of figure painting and the reading expectations that this quality dictates over a long period of history, from antiquity to the invention of photography in the nineteenth century. From the deafening revolutionary force, to the dominant model that dominates the world, to the concepts and techniques that the art world is accustomed to, realism has an important and influential influence in the creation, appreciation and reception of Chinese art. How to understand realism, and how to interpret and present the truth as we understand it, is the core problem that a painter has to face.

On the contrary, we can draw the conclusion that the value, height and originality of figure painters depend on the understanding, adherence and control of realism on the one hand, and on the examination, breakthrough and abandonment of realism on the other hand. For figure painters, realism is an insurmountable premise, which is not only the land where all things grow, but also the legal obstacle that plagues the subject. In Li Keran's words, it takes a lot of strength to punch in, and it takes a lot of courage to punch out. There are infinite possibilities between breaking and standing, which also provides us with a basic method and angle for interpreting Mr. Shi Liang's paintings.

Place - 40cmx30cm - 1986.

Puberty - 80cmx60cm - 1992.

Precociousness is the common denominator of geniuses, and Shi Liang completed the technical maturity in his twenties, showing a deep understanding of classical realism. Created in 1986, "Place" is amazing in its handling of color, rhythm and effects. Rich and feminine, with a long and uncomplicated feeling, it is undoubtedly a stunning and brilliant work. Three paintings from 1988: "Looking Back", "Tranquility" and "Zhuang Mei". If "Place" still retains some traces of art history, these works represented by "Looking Back" are object-centered, with profound and delicate brushstrokes, prudent and affirmative interpretation, and melancholy and mysterious atmosphere, which are enough to announce the birth of a young genius. This also marked the first stage of Shi Liang's oil painting, which I call the "object period".

Beginning in 1991, Shi Liang gradually began to reflect on and alienate himself from classicism. Delicate, balanced, and proper, everything is flawless, but the overall feeling is oppressive and dull. When everything is under control, Shi Liang suddenly discovers a deadly danger - the alienation of the subject, or objectification. He began to seek his own artistic life, looking for something that would really ignite him in every way. This process is long and arduous, and Shi Liang strengthens the reproduction of the subject's spiritual world on the one hand, and tries to express his inner needs in a subtle way, such as empathy, irony, refinement, perception, and so on. By 1995, the imagery of the object had begun to emerge, and Shi Liang entered a new stage of his artistic life.

When imagery becomes a new source of inspiration, reading Shi Liang's paintings again will give you a sense of enlightenment. The Zen pass was broken one day, and the beauty was like a jade sword like a rainbow. Shi Liang once quoted these two poems from the ancients to describe the anguish and joy in the process of transmutation "from object to image". This bittersweet experience, as his own deep feelings, is often projected into the work, which is also a fact that we tend to ignore when reading Shi Liang. Shi Liang is obviously not an aesthete in an ivory tower, his brushstrokes involve all kinds of human beings, with great effort and courage to face the confusion of existence, trying to analyze every subtle change of human nature and emotion, from sunlight to darkness, or even desperate night.

The "Confusion of Man" series and the "Indecent Assault" series, created in 2008, are a good example of this. This series of works depicts a scene from performance art, which is translucent, spicy and laughable, and the complexity of semantics and the uniqueness of thinking are very different from ordinary subjective creations, and have obviously risen to the level of "image".

The Confusion of Man 1-200cmx180cm-2008.

The Confusion of Man 2-200cmx180cm-2008.

The Confusion of Man 3-200cmx180cm-2008.

The Confusion of Man 4-200cmx180cm-2008.

The image erected by Shi Liang is actually the product of the mutual emergence and pondering of the internal needs of the subject and the inherent attributes of the object. He endows the image with an aesthetic character of independence, completeness and self-sufficiency, and the hyper-realism is mixed with a moderate amount of abstraction, and the visual is extremely colorful and simple, with a sense of Gothic mystery and loneliness.

These works with urban themes confront the absurdity, embarrassment and crampedness of contemporary life, with a spicy and courageous meaning, and the overall feeling is full of vitality and passion, so it is not appropriate to label it as critical. Recognizing the absurdity and embarrassment of reality, rather than simply evading or denying it, may be a kind of respect and praise for the painter's true life. The superb realism, metaphor and irony give these works a sense of dissonance and unforgettable.

Melting glacier - 150cmx120cm - 1995.

The baroque composition often used in Shi Liang's paintings, with its condensed schema, strange momentum, and passionate passion, declares the painter's academic roots, and at the same time, to a certain extent, hints at his artistic orientation: to develop his own creative practice within the traditional system. In fact, breaking through the barriers of the ancients in a subtle, steady, and comfortable way requires more foundation and submersion than the hurricane and sudden advance of scolding the Buddha and scolding the ancestors and obliterating everything.

Shi Liang's artistic concept led him to reject vulgar realism from the very beginning. Secular themes, gimmicks and cookie-cutter poetry would have no place in his art world. He believes that art should grasp and care for the external world in an artistic way, and only in this way can self-realization be achieved in the true sense.

Spring Rainbow - 140cmx100cm - 1995.

Shi Liang is sensitive and pure, and he admires Velázquez and Freud the most. However, reading his paintings reminds me of Nabokov, who on the surface is not the same, but Shi Liang is indeed a painter of painters, just as Nabokov is a writer of writers. Condensed, profound, and unified, it will always have an aristocratic atmosphere and philosophical meaning, and it will always give people room for deduction and inference.

As a precocious genius, Shi Liang is one of the leading figures of the "85 New Wave", and his artistic concepts and practices have had a profound impact on contemporary Chinese art. He has also been thinking about the possibilities and limitations of art itself. He often said that art is not absolute, but her possibilities are infinite, and the artist must seek the infinite from the limitations, so as to prove the Tao through painting, and seek the essence of painting. In artistic practice, in the continuous exploration of "from object to image to image", in the cycle of daily situations, themes of the times and life experience, the pure expression of life experience is beyond all else.

Ronin - 80cmx60cm - 1995.

Inverted - 180cmx180cm - 1996.

Confused - 200cmx190cm - 1998.

Patrol - 180cmx110cm - 1998.

Liberated - 120cmx80cm - 1999.

Stay - 160cmx110cm - 2003.

Ambiguous - 110cmx160cm - 2006.

Youth Charm - 160cmx110cm - 2006.

Big Wrist - 110cmx160cm - 2007.

Friends - 60cmx40cm - 2010.

Viewing - 40cmx30cm - 2011.

Touch is true - 100cmx80cm - 2011.

Leisure - 160cmx150cm - 2014.

Post-60s - 160cmx150cm - 2015.

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