Guide
Choose a photo with the group painting "Four Seas as Home" as the background for a close-up. "Four Seas for Home" is a reference to the world map made by the Spaniards in 1375, black is the sea, white is the ground, just depicts my situation of crossing the ocean from Shanghai to Berlin, but also contains the meaning of water connecting the five continents and the four seas to make the world one. For me, it doesn't matter if people are smaller, they are originally small egos in the big world. ——Sun Songwen
"Drifting" is sometimes a state of creation
Sun Songwen, whose English name is Songwen Sun-von Berg, is said to have followed the surname of her foreign husband. Song Wen's husband has a standard German face, and the interview with the artist lasts for three years, never putting the artist's private life in it, Sun Songwen is different, her life background directly affects her artistic direction. In her work, I can see the heart of an artist in a state of wandering. It seems to be felt from the names of his solo exhibitions, such as "Out of the Window" in 2012 and "Line in Time and Space" in 2014. The two exhibitions are one in Berlin and one in Shanghai, but the wandering heart is the same. In an email to me who gave me a close-up photo, Songwen wrote: "I chose to take a group photo of "Four Seas as Home" as a close-up, which refers to the world map made by the Spaniards in 1375, black is the sea, white is the ground, which just depicts the situation when I crossed the ocean from Shanghai to Berlin, and also contains the meaning of water connecting the five continents and the four seas to make the world one." For me, it doesn't matter if people are smaller, they are originally small egos in the big world. ”
No.8 2014 Ink Rice Paper, 69x138cm
Drifting, sometimes not a bad thing, drifting, sometimes makes the artist's presentation very personal. Guan Songwen's paintings, the most touching thing for me is the state of "wandering", the state I am talking about has two meanings: one is that she turns her personal life into a symbol and integrates it into her works, life and art blend into a unified life journey, the "drifting" of the journey has become an important factor in life, the end of the journey is unknown, but the process is full of charm; the second meaning refers to the state when painting. In Songwen's work, there seems to be no prior deliberation, everything is not predetermined, and the impulse to paint comes from the search for the unknown and the spiritual presentation of the back of the visual symbol.
"No.9 A Line of Heaven" 2014 Ink Rice Paper 138x69cm
"The so-called shape does not refer to the depiction of concrete things, but to abstract the concrete, and then from the microscopic performance to the macroscopic generalization, the embodiment of the form and the physical mirror is not the main, the important thing is the process of formation and the viewer's perception and understanding of the vision," the artist said. To provide the viewer with a visual reading space, this seems to be the truth of the creation of the ode, in her eyes, the traces of simplicity, expressing the creative concept of German expressionism, the composition of ink color presents the Zen realm in traditional Chinese culture, the East and the West inadvertently encounter in the drift, in this regard, the state of "drifting" is the most important feature in the artistic clues of the ode, this feature originates from the shape, pen, ink, color, and the final presentation points directly to the heart.
"Temperature difference" is always the pursuit of the state of mind
Regarding "temperature", the "temperature" of the artwork, this seems to be a very hot word lately. Matter exists in the form of motion, there is a difference in temperature, there is a transmission of heat; there is an asymmetry in the distribution of information, there is a spread of information; there is a difference in the mind, there is a space for art, and art passes through different minds. In short, because it is different, it spreads. Temperature, not the sense of body, is the visual experience. Reading the works of Song Wen, the temperature seems to be a door, a key to enter the room. In the work "NO.8", the picture of the ink medium seems to be two mountains in harmony, and like the shadows of the earth interacting, the artist transmits some uncertain heat here, if we are attracted to this hot spot, we may fall into the misunderstanding of being preset by the artist.
Untitled Yin, 2016 Ink Rice Paper, 69x56cm
Sex is always a hot topic in contemporary art, but sex is never just for the sake of expression. The artist wants to lead us into another kind of time and space to interpret, such as the origin of life, such as the pulse of life, the origin and pulsation, which exist in the curve of painting and in the level of the picture. Paul Klee once said, "Art does not depict what is visible, but creates what is invisible." In the past, people depicted things, depicted things that could be seen on earth, and they were things that people were happy to see or had been happy to see. This kind of thing is only an isolated example compared to the whole world, and the truth is hidden in most things, and we should strive to find the essence from accidental phenomena", the words of the master may enlighten us to read Sun Songwen's paintings.
Untitled Yang, 2016 Ink Rice Paper, 69x56cm
In the work titled Untitled Yin Yang, I see another type of uncertainty for the artist, two related and separate pictures, showing the softness between the hard and the soft of the sharp angle, the hard and the soft, seemingly randomly adding symbols, and such additions are easy to ignore, but they are the key. These are two common-sense symbols related to men and women, through which we may be able to perceive the original intention of the artist, but what kind of spiritual impact these visions bring to us, this is another thing. The interpretation of works of art itself carries uncertainty, and there is no clear answer to the presentation of contemporary art, perhaps this is the charm of art.
About the author
Songwen Sun-von Berg
Born in 1968 in Shanghai, China, he has lived and worked in Berlin, Germany since 1991. He is now a member of the Association of Professional Artists of Germany and a freelance artist whose works are in the collections of the German Foreign Office and the Berlin National Museum.
Solo Exhibitions:
2016 "Four Seas as Home", German Foreign Office, Germany
Sun Songwen Solo Exhibition, Profil Gallery, Germany, 2016
Virtual and Real, 2015, German-Chinese Friendship Association, Berlin, Germany
Everything Grows, 2013, Yumachi Gallery, Germany
2012 "Inside and Outside the Window", Yahong Gallery, Shanghai, China
❖ END ❖