"Movement, movement, illusion, and all other visual experiences and states related to time and space are of particular interest to me, although there are many specific reasons and stories on the surface of things, I am only willing to extract the main line of "movement" behind it to expand my visual imagination, and when everything "moves", my creative thoughts will be so excited that I can summarize a new result through the constantly moving visual image, in my eyes, the static object can hardly attract my attention, and even affect my way of life. The schema of the horse and the moving figure touched exactly the space I imagined. --Hu Chijun
◎Phantom 019| oil on canvas
108cm × 80cm 2020
Text/ Yin Fei
In the field of contemporary art, Hu Chijun is a maverick being, which is not to say how independent he is – in fact, he is passionate, romantic, and full of the power of life – this is an artist who came from the 1980s and experienced 40 years of ups and downs in contemporary art, but has never been wrapped up in any artistic trend and framed by any artistic concept. Those inherent art criticism languages always seem to be a little difficult to understand when facing Hu Chijun's works. We can't help but wonder what made him so determined and free in the field of contemporary art in the 40 years of ebb and flow. What makes him still have an enviable and endless stream of creativity in this "almost exhausted" shelf painting art?
◎Phantom Movement-023| Oil on canvas
160cm × 120cm 2020
◎Phantom 022| oil on canvas
80cm × 108cm 2020
Half Bay | oil on canvas
260cm × 220cm 2020
From the "Group" and "Tibet" series in the 1980s and the "Old City Transformation" series in the 1990s, it can be seen that Hu Chijun's exploration and advancement of the ontological language of art and his unique visual sensitivity and life sensitivity can be seen. But I think Hu Chijun's real formation of a more mature painting style should be after entering the 2000s, especially the "Phantom Movement" series and the series of works about "horses". In these works, Hu Chijun is extremely good at capturing the instantaneous dynamics of objects in life, which is extremely tense.
But for Hu Chijun, putting aside the life and state behind the art, just talking about the picture of the work is as boring as reading an excellent story, bypassing the wonderful process to reach the result. Hu Chijun's artistic creations are rarely based on text or art history. His work is more rooted in his own life, in his most personal visual and emotional experiences. So when we talk about Hu Chijun, we have to talk about his large-scale ecological space art, his second work site - "Hulu".
◎Hulu terrain in metamorphosis (unfinished oil painting)
◎Synthesis scheme of horse with leaf moth and lake blue cicada
"Hulu" was built in the middle of a barren mountain 100 kilometers away from Guangzhou. Yes, at a time when contemporary artists were scrambling to enter the metropolis (which undoubtedly had more abundant capital, collectors, markets and other resources), Hu Chijun built his own "lake" in the middle of a barren mountain. This requires funds, and it is necessary to overcome one difficulty after another, to dig mountains and roads, and to divert water to generate electricity. We have no chance to see this process first-hand, but There is a specific description in the article of teacher Li Gongming: "From the water source of Nankunshan at an altitude of 500 meters above sea level, nearly 3,000 meters of diversion pipes were laid, and two water sources were found (commonly used water in the rainy season and spare water sources in the dry season); in 1998, a 5-7 meter wide and 1500-meter long mountain road was excavated, and 25,000 cubic meters of mud were excavated; in order not to destroy trees, as far as possible to protect the original vegetation landscape, all the construction of the lake was replaced by manpower and machinery. It is better to extend the construction time for this purpose; use manpower to sort out the pile foundation, dig the pool, and manually dig and transport about 1200 cubic meters of soil; One of the statistics is that using the burden of a fixed worker, he independently carried all the sand, stone, cement, steel, bricks, decoration materials totaling about 1200 tons in 3 years. A few simple descriptions are the years that Hu Chijun spent. This requires great willpower and courage, and it is also caused by Hu Chijun's extremely high artistic spirituality and life spirituality, which is the intuitive drive of people to reduce life to the purest state, which belongs to vision and life.
◎ Records of playing by the lake
◎ Party in the lake before the rainy season
◎One early morning in May 2008, I photographed the high water level of the once-in-a-century lake
◎ Tubu Lake
◎Lake Horse as a reference for hydrometeorological observation
◎Sunset afterglow
The landscape seen from the inside of the Hulu building to the exterior | taken by Hu Chijun
What is important is that the construction of the "Lake Lu" is not a kind of conquest but a kind of integration, a rare spiritual interaction between people and nature in modern industrial civilization and harmonious coexistence. Don't make too many presets, don't do too much control and arrangement, let life collide with life, and let life generate power from each other. Many of Hu Chijun's works are inspired by his collision with the surrounding environment of Hulu.
Hu Chijun said: "I hope to explore the dependence of life energy conversion between man and nature in a painting way, and strive to experience the dependence between human creativity and natural resources through the lowest and most basic experience in real life, and explore a dilemma of human survival." ”
Since entering the world of industrial civilization, science and technology have developed rapidly, material explosions, information explosions, human spiritual alienation, consumerism, hedonism rampant, accompanied by man's overexploitation and destruction of nature, and made mankind face a new crisis. The construction of Hulu is not only based on the artistic instinct of an artist, the existence of Hulu is actually more like Hu Chijun exploring a new possibility of the relationship between man and nature and practicing another feasible order for human beings in the cultural context of "confrontation", "conflict" and "conquest" in contemporary society.
◎ Cloudy Starry Sky Digital Photography 2008
◎ Prepare two sculptural horses to be placed in a wild lake
◎ Before the rainy season comes, you must send the horse to the lake| Hu Chijun to shoot
Hayek, a modern liberal economist in the West, once distinguished between two orders in human society, one is the "spontaneous order" and the other is the order designed by man. The so-called "spontaneous order" is not to exclude the human factor, it is to regard the human factor as a variable within the system, rather than the development guide of the whole system. Hayek believed that such a spontaneous order of natural generation and evolution was the most reliable social order.
It is clear that hu chijun is trying to construct this "spontaneous order" between his art, life, and nature, and he is more fascinated by this process of "generation" and "evolution" than "order". As Hu Chijun said: "I set up a bureau in the wild for interesting people to experience together, and in daily play, I will turn myself into a third party (the environment of this bureau is the first person, and the friends who participate in this game are the second party) to record this change process in the "spontaneous order"."
◎ Morning light
◎ Green water tree shadow
◎Bihu Tree Shadow
An artist's thoughts determine not only the content of his language, but also the way he speaks. In Hu Chijun's recent works, such as the "Phantom Movement" series and the "Festival" series, you can see that his pictures are less planned and arranged in advance, and in the process of creation, he also fully respects the characteristics of the pigments and the medium, respects many occasional and uncertain things in the process, intermittent brushstrokes, sometimes non-existent lines, vaguely visible objects, and conforms to the natural generation and self-discipline of the themes of "phantom movement" and "solar terms". These works, along with his lake, became the vehicles of Hayek's "spontaneous order."
◎Dasha 0722 | oil on canvas
◎ Manzi 0605 | oil on canvas
◎Daxue 1207 | oil on canvas
◎ Hanlu 1008 | oil on canvas
There are three views in life: seeing oneself, seeing heaven and earth, and seeing sentient beings. HuLu to Hu Chijun is this process of "seeing". Grow your own vegetables and work hard. He also maintains a simple and positive interaction with the local villagers, and there are many interesting stories between them. "Life is full of hard work, but it lives poetically." This is really enviable and fascinating! What moves art and life is not the concepts that are unclear, but precisely the primitive, spiritual, true freedom and ease.
◎Phantom 020 | oil on canvas
160cm × 120cm 2019
◎Phantom 02| oil on canvas
310cm × 120cm 2019
◎Blooming | oil on canvas
Hu Chijun was born in Guangzhou in 1960. In 1982, he graduated from the oil painting department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. In 1987, he graduated from the postgraduate class of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts with a master's degree, and has been teaching at the school since the same year. He once served as the director, professor and master tutor of the fourth studio of the Oil Painting Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
Source: Comic Art