One of Nanke's Dreams 2021
"Pleasures at Sea" Part II 2019
◎ Li Zhouyi
From 2011's "Xizi Xingle", later "Sea Music", and then to 2021's "Spring Xingle", Hu Xiaojun's "Bicycle" series has been a full decade.
Hu Xiaojun has been teaching at Zhejiang University for thirty years, and the campus is naturally the scenery he is most familiar with. Bicycles are the main means of transportation for students on campus, and as a university professor, Hu Xiaojun's understanding of the joy of cycling is probably more direct and profound than that of most people in the city. When the heat wave of youth whistles with the traffic, the artist's audiovisual experience is immediately transformed into inner emotions and sublimated into inspiration for artistic creation - so that you can understand the spiritual motivation of Hu Xiaojun's ten years of creating the "Bicycle" series.
Of course, as far as the artist can see, it has long been limited to more than just a corner of the campus. From the ten-year evolution of the "Bicycle" series of works, it can be seen that Hu Xiaojun's exploration of artistic language can be seen. The main body of the paintings in this series usually consists of one or two people and a bicycle. Behind the figures, the visual space created by the handmade dots is often unified, or the natural and rich glaze texture is presented in the form of glaze reduction – from which the artist's deep expansion of painterliness can be seen. Unlike previous works dedicated to the lyricism of characters and facial expressions and rich body language, the artist's 2021 works, line expression is obviously more childish and personalized. It can be seen that for Hu Xiaojun, the in-depth cultivation, excavation and expansion of the painting language is the fundamental direction of his progress.
In addition, in recent years, a series of works called "Red Face on the Sea" has become increasingly prominent from Hu Xiaojun's overall creation, constituting its representative significance.
As the title, "The Sea" does not refer specifically to the magic capital, but to all contemporary cities; "Red Face" undoubtedly refers to women. Therefore, the "Red Face on the Sea" series of works is expressed to women in contemporary urban life. What does the artist see through his "gaze" at the lives of urban women?
The 2021 "Red Face at Sea" series consists of six large bottles. A large round bottle of full bottles forms a 360-degree continuous looping stage. In the center of the stage, there are four or five urban women crowded, they either drink, or drink coffee, or brush mobile phones; all kinds of hat decorations, goblets, coffee cups, as well as nostalgic tables and chairs, fans, chandeliers, etc., constitute a trance-like contemporary urban modern landscape, like a dream? Not dreaming?
Compared with previous series of porcelain plates with the same title, the "Red Face on the Sea" series highlights the relationship between the shape of the vessel and the language of painting. The artist uses the stage effect of the continuous cycle of the bottle body to deliberately create a psychological drama scene with a crowded space that is not shocking on the surface but surging undercurrent. The body language of the many women crowded in the "stage" space, intertwined, conflicting, confrontational and pandering to each other, highlights the eternal and profound loneliness of urban humans under the noisy contemporary floating landscape. Hu Xiaojun's use of noise to express loneliness clearly reflects another meaning of the American painter Edward Hope writing about loneliness in addition to loneliness.
In 2021, Hu Xiaojun created a new series of works called "Qiu Jiang". The works are all painted in blue and white. The reason why it is named "Autumn River" is that the picture shows the scenes of paddle board practitioners, or struggling to paddle, or taking a short break. In addition to the hanging plate showing the waves in the form of a hook line, the autumn water as the background of the characters in the utensils is all in the form of blank space. The blank space is not doing nothing, but adopts its consistent and iconic craftsmanship - the glaze reduction method. The natural firing texture is used to express the sparkling light on the river surface, thus forming a contrasting relationship between the smooth glaze of the figure painting part and the natural texture of the glazed background. It is in the contrast of smooth and anti-smooth materials, in the painting under human control and the natural firing outside the control, that Hu Xiaojun launched an aesthetic exploration of ceramic painting.
This brings us back to the fundamental question, what could be painting in the twenty-first century? Of course, the first is the meaning of the image, and the second is the meaning of the language. Language is form, but it transcends form.
In the 1980s, the resurgence of Western painting highlighted the importance of the language of painting. Language is no longer just a form, it has in fact become an important part of content. That is to say, language has in fact become a key force in the rebirth of painting.
Most of Hu Xiaojun's works in recent years have been paintings on porcelain plates or porcelain surfaces. That is to say, his works can be understood as paintings on porcelain, as well as paintings created using ceramic media and firing techniques. I prefer to understand Hu Xiaojun's works in the way of the latter.
In my opinion, he is an artist who uses ceramic media to carry out his work, and painting is only one of the main ways of expression. Compared with other painting media such as ink painting, oil painting, and propylene, ceramic media obviously has more language space to explore. Hu Xiaojun believes: "(I) do not imitate Chinese literati paintings on ceramics, nor do I make partial embellishments and decorations on porcelain, but combine the unique characteristics of ceramics such as mud, glaze, color, molding, and firing with painting to create." ”
Glaze reduction, originally a flaw and defect formed during the firing process of ceramics, Hu Xiaojun was inspired by the opening of the celadon glaze of the Song Dynasty and began to experiment with the shrinking glaze, which eventually became his signature artistic language and successfully integrated into the overall style. It can be seen that Hu Xiaojun has expanded the language of porcelain painting, and compared with traditional porcelain painting, the artistic language is more abundant; from the perspective of painting, the artist is expressed to fully explore the characteristics of materials and expand the language space, thus touching more aesthetic possibilities.
From the perspective of painting alone, you can also feel the power of Hu Xiaojun's works. His painting language, which is clearly related to the Chinese art tradition, is embodied in the modeling style characterized by line outline, thus establishing a vertical relationship between the work and history. Hu Xiaojun said: "I am intimately intertwined with this side of the water and soil, this side of the scenery, my inner life is undisturbed immersed in the extended aesthetic photograph, with the most weighty glaze changes outline the objective object image of the vibrant spiritual space, and then quenched by fire into a harmonious and complete poetry." ”
To this end, Hu Xiaojun was inspired by the unearthed Tang Dynasty brushes and went to Huzhou to communicate with the pen makers and develop a unique painting tool - the sheep's whisker long pole brush. With the calligraphy experience he had gained from his long-term study of the Han Dynasty's Lishu "Ode to shimen", coupled with such a satisfactory line expression tool, the swing was naturally vivid.
Of course, ceramics are different from paper and ink, and to obtain a state of freedom of swing on the porcelain tire requires the artist to fully control the characteristics of the media. Taking the use of blue and white materials as an example, it is necessary to develop the water-splitting technology of traditional blue and white porcelain painting, and through the subtle control of the relationship between glaze and line changes, in order to achieve its "naïve" painting expression.
And life is still important. In Hu Xiaojun's various series of works, various props from the reality of life are everywhere: jiangnan is rainy and rainy, umbrellas are indispensable, bicycles and young lovers are eternal protagonists, and occasionally a lively spotted dog comes running. In addition, the mobile phone he holds in his hand, the hat he wears on his head, and various styles of short skirts and shorts and trousers all reveal a rich atmosphere of the times - it can be seen that he is really a messy and warm life catcher.