Xi'an, 18 Feb (Xinhua) -- Wearing an aviation hat, her naked upper body muscles are vigorous, a pair of arms are wrapped in mechanical armor, two mechanical arms are stretched out from the back, and a pair of tiger-headed shoes are stepped on under the white cotton pants... As soon as he walked into the studio of Zhang Beiyuan, the non-hereditary heir of the face sculpture, the reporter's eyes were attracted by a "mix-and-match shape" face sculpture, and he couldn't help but wonder, is this still the "face person" we are familiar with?
"This work is called 'Snowmobile', and it is the finishing touch of the 'Together to the Future' Winter Olympic theme." Zhang Beiyuan said that the domestic high-performance snowmobile unveiled at the Beijing Winter Olympics used aerospace technology, which gave him creative inspiration, "From the bottom up, the tiger head shoes and white cotton pants show the traditional cultural elements of Shaanxi, the snowmobile is abstracted into the mechanical armor on the arm, the two mechanical arms on the back are taken from the mechanical arms of the mainland space station, and the aviation hat represents the future, and the torch held by the mechanical arm is a symbol of the Olympic spirit." ”
In order to celebrate the Beijing Winter Olympics, Zhang Beiyuan spent more than 20 days creating a group of seven Winter Olympics-themed face sculptures, which fixed the wonderful moments of snowmobiles, freestyle skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, curling, steel frame snowmobiles and other projects, and skillfully integrated local cultural elements, Olympic spirit and "futurism".
Zhang Beiyuan created the "Together to the Future" Winter Olympics theme sculpture. Xinhua News Agency reporter Sun Zhengzheng photographed
Using the face plastic skills that have been passed down for thousands of years, excavating traditional cultural elements and combining contemporary aesthetics to create, Zhang Beiyuan, a 36-year-old inheritor of face sculpture production skills, has been engaged in the cause of more than ten years.
"Shaanxi noodle sculpture first originated from the Tang Zhongzong period, and at the famous tail-burning banquet, a group of 70 beautiful immortal noodle shapes called the Su Steaming Sound Part were the prototypes of the noodle sculpture." Zhang Beiyuan said that after using common flour, oil, salt, sugar, vinegar, pigments and good dough, after rubbing, kneading, picking, pulling and plucking, a piece of dough becomes a lifelike dough figure.
Since childhood, Zhang Beiyuan has begun to learn to make face sculpture with his uncle. In 2004, he went to Japan to study sculpture and anime. In his interactions with international students, he found that his classmates were proud of their own culture, which led him to re-examine traditional culture and the skills handed down from generation to generation, determined to use ancient skills to tell the story of the new era.
Not stuck to the traditional face sculpture character image, Zhang Beiyuan's works have the styling characteristics of animation, inheriting the cultural core, re-dismantling and expressing cultural elements, and creating "Chinese style" face sculpture works in the sky. The Silk Roads, opera, dragon and lion dances and the National Games were all themes of his creations.
Zhang Beiyuan teaches face shaping techniques to students. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Cai Xinyi
In addition to his creation, Zhang Beiyuan also opened a training institute and cooperated with many primary and secondary schools to open face painting courses. The 10-year-old Zhao Ludi has been learning face sculpture with Zhang Beiyuan for more than two years, and what makes her love the plastic is not only the sense of accomplishment of completing a work by hand, but also Zhang Beiyuan's storytelling style of class: "Teacher Zhang teaches techniques while talking about traditional allusions and folk culture, not boring in class, and also learns a lot of knowledge." In Zhang Beiyuan's view, only by firmly anchoring the cultural foundation can we create good works.
After completing the Winter Olympics work, Zhang Beiyuan set his sights on the Universiade and the Asian Games, "That will be a more youthful and unexpected creation." ”