Chen Huimin is an outstanding representative of the field of contemporary gongbi flowers, in more than 30 years of creative career, she has been excavating the expressiveness of the theme of flowers, and the painting style is bold, thick and simple. Her flowers are either warm and unrestrained, or elegant and beautiful, or quiet and timeless, gorgeous but not delicate, graceful and not feminine, pure and not tender, colorful and not gorgeous, giving people a fresh, elegant, tranquil and gorgeous beauty. It occupies an important position in the contemporary brush flower painting world.
Chen Huimin, female, born in 1943, graduated from Beijing Academy of Art and Design (formerly Beijing School of Arts and Crafts) in 1964. He has been engaged in arts and crafts design for many years, serving as a senior arts and crafts artist, and transferred to colleges and universities in 1985 to engage in arts and crafts teaching, and successively served as a professor of the art department of Beigong Gengdan College and a professor of Jinghua Academy of Fine Arts. He is currently a member of the Beijing Artists Association, a member of the Beijing Gongbi Heavy Color Painting Society, a director of the Chinese Calligraphers and Painters Association, and a member of the Art Committee of the Central Academy of Calligraphy and Painting in China. In 1991, he began to specialize in heavy color painting, and a large number of works were published in professional publications such as "Chinese Painting", "Fine Arts", "Artist", etc., and was selected for domestic and foreign painting exhibitions such as "Collection of Works of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition" and "Works of Contemporary Chinese Female Painters", and published "Chen Huimin Heavy Color Painting Collection".
After 1991, Chen Huimin began to create brush strokes. In these short years, she created a large number of wonderful flower works, which attracted the attention of the society and was affirmed by the painting community. Her success has given us a lot of inspiration and thinking:
No matter what a painter paints, to achieve results and success, it does not depend entirely on academic qualifications or qualifications, nor does it depend entirely on the early and late start and the size of the age, but on whether he can fully understand himself, grasp himself, tap his potential, use and give play to his own advantages and strengths, and whether he can make great determination, spend a lot of effort, spend a lot of effort, and be down-to-earth to tackle and climb. Chen Huimin has set a successful example for us with her own practical actions. Reading Chen Huimin's works, I have the following impressions:
First, full of passion for life
Chen Huimin does not hunt for exotic mountain flowers and tropical rainforests, but mostly uses famous flowers (vase flowers) as the object of description, expressing her love for life and expressing her good wishes. Her autumn chrysanthemums, tulips, shandandan, dahlias, cockscomb flowers, upside-down golden bells, turtle back bamboo, and white morning glory are all strong and full, all of which reveal her fierce love for life. The vases of flowers she painted, such as golden chrysanthemums, moon seasons, Yingchun, Changlan, and Yu Meiren, are sweet and magnificent, and they are all unpretentious.
It seems not surprising to mention the vase flower, but it is loved and favored by countless painters, which reminds us of the colorful oil painting vase flowers of Western painters Lei Dong, Cézanne and Van Gogh, and also think of the wonderful vase flower works of Chinese painters Lin Fengmian and Wei Tianlin. The freehand vase flowers of Chinese literati painters are even more diverse and are not uncommon. However, Chen Huimin's vase flower series is different from her predecessors, the vase flower shape she paints is blooming, the composition is full, the color is intense, and the feeling is magnificent. Her vase flower works can evoke people's love for life and the beautiful attachment and yearning for life. Chen Huimin's works are a portrayal of her passion for life.
Second, the beauty of realism and decorative beauty
Chen Huimin's brush flower works are vivid in form and beautiful in shape, which is the result of her long-term careful observation of flowers and a large number of sketches. Each of her works is created through careful sketching, rather than following the film as material. Therefore, the flowers she depicts, as well as a variety of vases, tables and chairs, interlinings, window ledges, and cabinet fans, are depicted very delicately, realistically, naturally and vividly, without the slightest sense of simplicity and emptiness.
One of the charms of her floral works comes from the beauty of realism. Chen Huimin is very good at playing her own arts and crafts expertise. Her works are rich in decorative composition consciousness in composition, realistic in shape and decorative deformation, and exaggerated and changing decorative styles in color. The decorative composition is skillfully combined and integrated with the expression of Chinese Gongbi painting, so that its picture is rich in rich decorative beauty, forming the distinctive characteristics and advantages of her works. Therefore, another charm of Chen Huimin's floral works comes from the beauty of decoration.
Third, valuable exploration
If Chen Huimin's 1996 exhibition of couples' flower and bird paintings at the National Art Museum of China is taken as a stage, then her creation has entered a new exploration process since the second half of 1996. After watching her new works in the past two years, I feel sincere admiration for her enterprising spirit of exploration and amazing perseverance. Her new works are the "Window" series and the "Ge Fan" series, which are rich in national culture; the other is the "Sunflower" series, which is rich in modern expression consciousness.
Her "Window" series is based on the flower window with the characteristics of traditional ethnic architecture as the foreground, resembling a beautiful natural frame, with blooming flowers as the main depiction of flowers outside the window. The colorful and colorful floral scenery intercepted by the exquisite and quaint wooden windows is vigorous and radiant, with different shades, bringing a leisurely and fresh atmosphere to the viewer, making it quite a new garden flavor that combines ancient and modern. Her "Cabinet Fan" series is also based on the pavilion fan with the traditional national architectural style as the foreground, with the same style of tables, chairs, and strips as the background, and the vase flowers blooming behind the door as the main body.
Compared with the "Window" series, the "Cabinet Fan" series has a more sense of perspective, space and layering in composition and processing, and the depth of field is wider; In the color processing, the contrast between one light and one dark sets off the loud color. The vase flowers displayed in front of the viewer through the exquisite, quaint and quite composed lattice door leaf resemble a colorful lamp that radiates dazzling light, which is particularly brilliant and dazzling. Its picture is antique and has a taste for life, it makes people pleasing to the eye, but also feels idyllic and warm. It is a bold exploration by the painter to combine traditional beauty with modern beauty, floral still life with environmental scenery.
The value and significance of the "Window" series and the "Ge Fan" series not only lies in the visual freshness, but also in the fact that it integrates the national cultural spirit and life atmosphere, makes the works more spiritual connotations, and breaks the original thinking mode of traditional Chinese painting, especially gongbi flower and bird painting, and makes a breakthrough and challenging attempt in formal language. It will play a positive role in promoting the development of Chinese gongbi painting and have an important impact. Undoubtedly, for Chen Huimin, this kind of exploration is a step forward and sublimation in the creative thinking and realm, which is very valuable.
Another genre of Chen Huimin's new works is the Sunflower series. The characteristics of this series of works are close-ups of the oriented sunflowers, their composition is full, the shape is rigorous and realistic, the form is vivid and natural, and the picture has a strong sense of form. In particular, it should be pointed out that the works absorb and use the characteristics and advantages of Western expressionist paintings in color that pay attention to the role of personality consciousness of the subject and strengthen the relationship between color contrast and dynamic emotions. Under the strong and thick red background of the extremely ethnic decoration style and almost flat paint, the sunflowers appear more and more magnificent.
Chen Huimin's "Window" series, "Cabinet Fan" series and "Sunflower" series are a good beginning for her to integrate her own beautiful life into nature and move towards a new journey with a more macroscopic thinking and creative consciousness. I like Chen Huimin's paintings and appreciate her proactive spirit of exploration.
Author: Li Kuizheng