Co-ordinator, text, photo/ Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Jing Jinjin
Video/ Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Liu Yingying Jing Jinjin
Let the various characters in the opera jump in the "pinch sculpture" and express their freehand spirit; The research and development of "Datang Red" glaze color, the creation of chic "Zodiac Pottery", the shaping of life beauty utensils, widely favored by the market... Not long ago, the China Light Industry Federation announced the list of the 8th China Arts and Crafts Masters, and Fan Anqi, a famous ceramicist from Shiwan, Foshan, was listed prominently, and was the only artist selected in Foshan this year. Her ceramic sculptures are both classical and modern, elegant, natural, rustic and simple.
"The essence of artistic creation is to awaken people's inner pursuit of beauty, and to trigger the audience's perception and exploration of beauty." "Post-70s" Fan Anqi came to Foshan from Fujian as a teenager and has been dealing with "mud and fire glaze" ever since. For more than 30 years, she has grown from a ceramic factory workshop worker to a master of pottery, benefiting from the fertile traditional pottery of Shiwan and its own style.
Fan Anqi
Fan Anqi's "Opera Characters" series of works
The most splendid times of life are all melted into pottery
"I especially enjoyed the time alone with the mud, in the middle of the night, alone in the studio, listening to the rustle of tools scraping the mud, and my mind wandered with my fingertips." In the late summer and early autumn afternoon, Fan Anqi's studio at the foot of Wufeng Mountain, reflected in the green mountains outside the window and the time inside the window, talked about her pottery student, she told her story.
In 1989, Fan Anqi, a Girl from Fujian Province, came to a pottery factory in Foshan. "At that time, I did many kinds of work such as drawing blanks, repairing blanks, printing, grouting, glazing and so on." Fan Anqi said that although the work was relatively basic at the beginning, it was through such tempering that she had a more in-depth and meticulous understanding of Shiwan pottery, thus laying the foundation for the belief in the industry.
Three years later, Fan Changed jobs to another school-run ceramics company. "At that time, the commuting time of the new unit was very standard, so I used the off-work time to read books, learn to draw, and constantly enrich myself. At the same time, I also have the opportunity to contact some teachers in art schools, look at their works, and trigger my own desire to create. ”
In 1994, by chance, Fan Anqi met the pottery master Zhong Rurong and worshiped him as a teacher. She has not studied in the college system but has a good understanding, seizes the opportunity to follow Teacher Zhong to learn, practices diligently, and studies hard. In 1995, she opened her own studio; In 2002, she and her husband founded their own ceramics brand "Dafeng Tang".
In the first ten years of creation, Fan Anqi focused on pottery themes mainly on life art utensils, such as vases, dishes and so on. She recalled, "At that time, the industry was popular for double dragon bottles, plum bottles, etc., and I used the clothing elements of Qing Dynasty ladies to make flower utensils. ”
In 2010, his ceramic artifacts "Sun moon tonghui" and "Zen clothing series" were permanently treasured by the VIP hall of the China National Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo.
Fan Anqi's "Opera Characters" series of works
Tell the story of "Joy and Sorrow" between "Pinch Sculptures"
The Tang Dynasty lady "Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter" is the first work in the process of Fan Anqi's character theme creation, created in 2005.
After that, she created a series of female characters such as "Flower Season", "Twenty-Eight Years", "Yifeng", "Waiting for the Moon", "Ode to the Wind" and so on, and she loved to watch traditional Chinese opera since she was a child, and initially tried to implant opera elements in character modeling.
"Traditional Chinese opera, which combines the essence of dance, art and vocal music, is extremely visually beautiful, interpreting the world's yin and sunny circles, sadness and joy, and containing narrative charm." If opera and pottery are combined, it is a combination of two kinds of beauty. Moreover, if you trace back to the roots, most of foshan's tile ridge dolls are also based on traditional dramas. After that, Fan Anqi immersed herself in the theme of "opera characters", continuously improved, and officially opened the creation of the "Opera Characters" series.
Talented and beautiful, flowers before the moon, or Qingqing me and me, or mourning and elegance; Heroic martial arts, eyes like a moment, the wind under the feet... In Fan Anqi's hands, the "singing and doing" of Shengdan Jingduuu is vividly embodied between the "kneading sculptures" of clay, with novel techniques and freehand expression.
"It is necessary to go deep into the play and express the essence of tradition; At the same time, it is necessary to break out of the drama to conform to the current context and connect the emotions of contemporary people. Fan Anqi introduced that when creating opera characters, in terms of shaping techniques, she used mud strips in many places on her clothing to highlight the essential properties of the soil, and retain the traces of contact between hands and tools and the soil; In the expression of glaze color, it abandons the primary color of the opera stage dress, and boldly uses its own unique color language, or the overall color, or slightly embellished, which looks simple, but does not lose its gorgeous charm.
Fan Anqi's "All Kinds of Colors" series of works
Fan Anqi's "A Paper Life" series of works
After a long period of exploration and shaping, the opera characters have become Fan Anqi's distinctive artistic symbols, and the representative works of her have won the 13th "Chinese Folk Art Mountain Flower Award". After that, she also created a series of works that integrate the elements of opera characters into the "All Kinds of Colors", the characters' images, clothing, and actions are more abstract and freehand, the glaze color is more pure and concise, but it does not reduce the expression and transmission of emotions, and the characters' smiles, joys and sorrows flow freely between hands and feet.
Kneading clay to make "paper", the paper says life. On the paper-like, copper-iron-like warm or cold clay "bags", a large piece of white space looms a different form of opera characters. In 2018, Fan Anqi's work "A Paper Life" won the first prize in the "Shiwan Cup" Youth Ceramic Sculpture (Utensils) Competition that year. This is her more abstract expression, and she is also more bold and innovative in her technique, in terms of the traditional aesthetic standards of Shiwan pottery, glaze foaming and wrinkles are "unacceptable", but she has taken inspiration from it and applied it to her works.
Fan Anqi zodiac pottery
Mid-Autumn Festival pottery created by Fan Anqi and his team
Develop "Datang Red" and create a unique "Zodiac Pottery"
Looking at Fan Anqi's works, there is a beautiful red color, which is very eye-catching. In 2008, she led the team to develop the "Datang Red" glaze color, which was fashionable and dazzling.
"Datang Hong" is neither the traditional pomegranate red of Shiwan nor the traditional Chinese red, but like the first two, it has a pure, joyful texture and is quite fashionable. It is worth mentioning that its research and development was inspired by a piece of red lacquered old furniture placed in Fan Anqi's home, which is red throughout, but it looks a little mottled under the infiltration of the age, and the corners are black and full of charm. This gave Fan Anqi the idea of modulating the same glaze color. After about half a year of exploration and research, under the unremitting efforts of Fan Anqi and the team, "DatangHong" was finally launched. Soon, she used "Datang Red" on the zodiac pottery, and the red cows, rabbits, monkeys, tigers, etc. were all popular in the market.
Fan Anqi's zodiac pottery is not only unique in color, but also ingenious in shape. For example, in the Year of the Snake, the Shiwan zodiac pottery on the market is generally based on realistic snakes, but Fan Anqi made a traditional Chinese Fu character, and made a small snake a cute and childish treatment, coiled in the middle of the Fu character, named "Hongshe Auspicious".
"Pottery works should be close to people's lives." This is the creative concept that Fan Anqi has always followed. To this end, pottery and cultural creation is also one of the directions of her efforts in recent years, and she continues to try to innovate.
"In the Shiwan pottery industry, it is very common to make zodiac pottery, but there are not many people who make Mid-Autumn Festival gift pottery, we have been making Mid-Autumn Festival pottery since last year, hoping to embellish people's lives with the beauty of pottery utensils." Recently, Fan Anqi led the team to create a series of Mid-Autumn Festival gift pottery, including lotus box, autumn harvest ruyi dish, golden gui fragrant tea pot, a pot of bright moon tea set, step by step lotus bowl, etc., fresh and chic, elegant and generous.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Feng Xiaojing
Proofreading | Peng Jiye