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Exhibition Title: Sprouting and Regeneration - Zhao Zitao Oil Painting Exhibition
Exhibition time: 2021.10.23-11.15
Opening time: October 23 at 3 pm
Venue: Chengdu Daguan Art Museum (Chengdu Global Center E2-6-610)
Academic Host: Yanxi
Curator: Yan Bi
Exhibition Coordinator: Kang Deyi Zhang Yang
Pingting - Empty Chair 200× 100cm Oil on canvas 2021
Thought of from "meaning"
Text/He Duoling
One night a few years ago, Zhao Zitao called from Japan. He was devastated by the teacher and complained to me. The Japanese professor said that he did not understand why Zhao Zitao pursued "good painting" and thought that this made no sense. I looked at the professor's painting and thought it was not well drawn and at the same time it didn't make any sense. I suggested that Zhao Zitao should not learn from her, the hand painting is broken, and at the same time can not get meaning.
Back 2 60×90cm Oil on canvas 2017
Zhao Zitao likes the painting itself, not the "meaning" outside the painting. This is where you should be scolded. When I was traveling in Japan, I visited the art museum and looked at the building itself, and I could hardly remember any paintings (except ukiyo-e). This shows that the "meaning" of Japanese contemporary art has not attracted me. I remember one year at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, I met the big exhibition of pumpkin girls, which was really a grand event, and the queue for buying derivatives alone was hundreds of meters. But apart from being guilty of dense phobias, I don't see any significance.
This article is not about Japanese art, but just about Zhao Zitao. Needless to say, he used to be very fascinated by my paintings. I also saw him looking at Mao Yan's paintings, which were almost smelling with his nose. As mentioned above, what Zhao Zitao likes is the painting itself. This means that there is such a class of painters who do not hire people as gunmen because they are not willing to give the pleasure of painting to others. They don't just care about the result they draw, because what they enjoy is the process. They spend their time immersed in canvases, palettes, and paints because they find themselves having so much fun. I belong to this kind of person, and so does Zhao Zitao, so he studies my paintings like a botanist studies a tree: not to study the meaning of the tree, but to study what a tree is.
Back 1 80×100cm oil on canvas 2015
In fact, in the traditional painting theory, some people think that the painting itself is the meaning. Ru Shitao: Where is the Law established? Stand in one painting. I think the "law" here also includes the method. The integration of "law"—process and "painting"—is the supreme realm of Chinese literati painting. I think that when you hang a painting on the wall, that's what it's all about. You can't give it more in other languages...
"Research" is the subject of this article. Here we are talking about the study of painting. Zhao Zitao sometimes came to see me to paint, and he didn't say a word in the back until I suspected that he had left, and when I looked back, this brother was nodding to himself, as if he had realized something. Maybe, another day, when I see his new painting, there is a little bit of it, which will also make me smile. In our communication, there is very little language, but there are many such tacit ways. In fact, to put it bluntly, it was a certain stroke of mine, or even a certain amount of less than a certain amount of resonance that caused him to resonate, listening to others, he described it as itching...
When I see that there is a divine stroke on the picture of others, a texture and trace that makes my heart move, I also have this itchy feeling. I'm ashamed to say that sometimes the joy of our painting is this, and the meaning lies in this. Not only for Japanese professors, but for most people in the industry today, this significance is insignificant and sometimes an obstacle to artistic progress. But perhaps, people like us are more concerned about our own progress...
Pingting 4 80×116cm Oil on canvas 2019
The above mention of Zhao Zitao's Road to Dongying stops at this "meaning". I reassured him that this might not be a blessing in disguise. For a person who likes to study, in fact, he is not completely useless. In recent years, people who look at the paintings feel that Zhao Zitao's painting style has changed. From my research point of view, I can certainly see what he wants to change and what his focus is. The result of these internal forces has affected the appearance of his works. No comment here, just a statement: he made a trade-off.
"Trade-offs" are an inevitable stage in the growth of a sincere painter. Of course, there are no trade-offs, a fist product to do a lifetime, purely personal choice, beyond reproach. What I admire is a different kind of person, who often resolutely gives up at a certain recognized peak moment, abandons martial arts, starts a new stove, and opens a new path in the thorns. This is the revolutionary. In me, although I have also changed the law, I am reluctant to – or too nostalgic – the three fists and two feet that I have practiced all my life, but I have quietly improved, so I am a reformist. Zhao Zitao also belongs to the latter. What he gave up, what he gained, I also nodded my head - see through and do not say broken, all to the audience's eyes to evaluate.
Rose Life 3 116× 80cm Oil on canvas 2019
(Partial)
Fallen Leaves- Autumn 162×130cm Oil on canvas 2019
A colleague once said to me that there are very few painters in the country who can paint as fun — he means physical pleasure. I don't know what his basis is, but this man is well-informed and may have some truth in his observations. In fact, in addition to myself, I can also see that there are still such painters, and the bitterness is all in the pen and ink. Zhao Zitao is also one.
A few last words. Taking Zhao Zitao as an example, perhaps he gave up some deliberate places, some premeditated strokes of god, and gained more freedom. But the road ahead is still long. Someone used a tongue twister to evaluate Shi Tao: The law of law cannot be, and the law of law cannot be law. How to give up further to achieve further gains? This is a problem that our type of people face every day.
Character Picture Book - About the Seasons - First Frost 112× 162cm Oil on canvas 2020
Looking back at 100×90cm Oil on canvas 2020
Cherry Rose 115×145cm Oil on canvas, 2015
Lan Yu and poetry 100×80cm oil on canvas 2016
Psychedelic Park 60×80cm Oil on canvas 2013
Sprouting and Regeneration - Zhao Zitao's Oil Painting Exhibition will open at 3 p.m. on October 23rd, welcome to visit the exhibition!
Edit | Kang Deyi Zhang Yang
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