【Ten years @ every struggling you】Zhou Bingyi, a master of Chinese root art art: carving Chinese aesthetic art in a millimeter

Zhou Bingyi created the scene.　Courtesy of respondents

Editor's Note:

Every Chinese who strives to live is the most beautiful strivers. It is precisely because of hundreds of millions of strivers that there is today's China. Ten years, salute to every struggling you. Let us work together to forge a new era and forge ahead into the future.

Ningbo, April 10 (Reporter Lin Bo) A hundred plum blossoms of different shapes bloom in the wind, and bees and dragonflies swim in the flowers, a thriving scene. This is the latest bamboo root carving work "A Red Plum Hundred Flowers Spring" by Zhou Bingyi, a member of the Ningbo Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a master of Chinese root art and art in the "40 Years of Art Series".

"Primrose without fighting for spring, metaphorically embedded in the rugged, virtuous, virtuous and dignified." This work mainly wants to show the charm of traditional culture through the Chinese aesthetic art of bamboo root carving. On April 10, Zhou Bingyi said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Network during the first meeting of the 16th Session of the Ningbo Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

From the rugged bamboo roots to the bamboo root carving works containing hundreds of stories, in Zhou Bingyi's knife and stroke, one story after another is carved, showing a different kind of Chinese aesthetic art.

Raw material for bamboo root carving.　Courtesy of respondents

Born in July 1964, Zhou Bingyi has been engaged in the development, innovation and research of bamboo root carving art since the 1980s, and has developed and comprehensively promoted a variety of techniques such as "antique bamboo root carving method", "local clever carving method" and "thin carving".

Root carving is a door technique and a door art, mainly wood root carving and bamboo root carving. Ningbo Xiangshan Peninsula is not only rich in marine resources, seafood is famous in China, the territory of the mountains are undulating, but also rich in moso bamboo, so there are many bamboo craftsmen.

"I learned the art of carving, at first to make a living." Zhou Bingyi explained that in the early years, bamboo was a necessary production and living tool for every household, and at that time in the countryside, craftsmen were more popular, "going to other people's homes to do carving handicraft work, not only to provide food, but also to earn wages." ”

Zhou Bingyi searched for raw materials for bamboo root carving.　Courtesy of respondents

From means of livelihood to exporting foreign exchange to today's dissemination of traditional culture, in the past 40 years of practice, Zhou Bingyi has been confused and confused, but after hesitation, he is insistent on artistic creation.

After the reform and opening up, Zhou Bingyi's carving career ushered in a peak, "with a group of people getting rich first, the domestic demand for the art market has exploded, and the supply of bamboo root carving market has exceeded demand." ”

Especially in the 1980s, China's handicraft export industry ushered in spring.

"In the 1980s, we went to Guangzhou every year to attend the Canton Fair, and no matter how high or low, the works would be swept away by foreign customers, most of whom were settled in US dollars." Recalling the "highlight moment" of root carving exports, Zhou Bingyi said that at that time, the Xiangshan root carving industry was mainly exported to the Southeast Asian market, and it could earn 300 million yuan a year.

Works by Zhou Bingyi.　Courtesy of respondents

Under the boom in the industry's exports, Zhou Bingyi successfully earned the first pot of gold, "At that time, a simple moso bamboo tube work was very popular." ”

In the decade of rapid development, Zhou Bingyi devoted himself to the creation of bamboo root carving.

However, as more and more people pour into the root carving industry, problems such as industry disorder, vicious competition, and quality decline have arisen, which has brought a heavy blow to the "growing" root carving industry.

How to make the root carving industry develop healthily? From quantity to quality, in the early 1990s, Zhou Bingyi returned to the art of bamboo root carving itself, committed to making breakthroughs in concepts, techniques and themes, integrating the beauty of character, artistic conception and the beauty of the times, and constantly pioneering and innovating to create artistic masterpieces.

In this decade of immersion, Zhou Bingyi combined traditional handicrafts with traditional culture, created hundreds of bamboo root carving works, promoted the transformation of elephant mountain mangosteen root carving from daily necessities to handicrafts to collectibles, broke the traditional handicraft and gradually became a micro-dilemma, and injected new vitality into this old craft.

And he also achieved transformation in this decade. In 1999, his bamboo root carving "Red Face" won the Liu Kaiqu Root Art Award, the highest award in the field of root art in China.

Go to Israel to participate in international expositions, go to Japan, Oman and other countries, carry out lectures and exchanges and technical performances... While polishing traditional skills, Zhou Bingyi also actively goes out to make traditional Chinese skills recognized by the world.

Although he has gone through 40 years of creative time, in Zhou Bingyi's view, it is now his best creative years, "The accumulation of time is the best creative element, forming my systematic aesthetic cognition, and is a valuable spiritual wealth." ”

In Zhou Bingyi's view, although Chinese bamboo root carving art has developed greatly, there are still many deficiencies in the construction of system theory, the cultivation of talent teams, and breakthroughs in artistic styles, and it has not yet been able to completely go out of the category of traditional craftsmanship and form a new context of traditional art. And these are also the directions in which he breaks through.

Today, Zhou Bingyi is building the Xiangshan Bamboo Root Carving Intangible Cultural Heritage Living Museum, "building a platform for the external display of bamboo root carving, so that more people can understand this art." (End)