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——析王彦萍的水墨创作及其风格转换
王彦萍是改革开放新时期涌现出的艺术家，理解她的作品脱离不了20世纪最后20年到新世纪10余年中国艺术所依存的文化语境，但仅仅用时代框架去解读她的作品，就会错过她作品中十分珍贵的独特性和个性特色。解读王彦萍的作品需要经历多重的维度，既需要借助艺术史和文化思潮的宏观视野，比照新时期“新型水墨”实践和那些带有前卫和实验精神的现代艺术运动，更不可绕过对艺术家个性的分析研究，因为作品中鲜活的信息往往隐含在其中。
From the Inert “Mental Images” to the folding “Worldly Perceptions” –An Analysis of the Transformations of Wang Yanping’s Art
Wang Yanping is an artist who emerged during the Opening-Up Reforms, to understand her artwork, one must take into consideration of cultural contexts in Chinese art from 1980 till 2010, if one only takes a chronological perception to look at her art, precious uniqueness and individuality would be overlooked. To decode Wang Yanping’s works, one must do so through multiple latitudes, from art history and the broad visions of Culture Waves. This means to compare the practices of contemporary “New Ink &Water” to the avant-garde spirit of experimentations in modern art movements. Not to forget the analysis of the artist’s character, often, the most revealing information is hidden there.
20世纪初“西学东渐”的形势重组了中国本土的艺术生态，与西洋绘画落根中土的剧烈变动相应，人们将以宣纸和水墨为媒介的中国绘画代之以“中国画”的名称，以回应和区别“西洋画”，之后兴起的民族国家意识又曾将这一画种定位在“国画”的概念之下。而在逐渐演变的文化观念中，“水墨”的概念开始兴起，从媒介的角度将这一绘画进行形态上的重新认知，这在很大程度上解放了艺术家的思想，引发了从媒介、观念、方法和个性等新的维度来感知水墨可能性的崭新空间，激活了艺术家的创造性和想象力。以改革开放初期的“新潮美术”运动为表征，短短30多年的时间，中国美术界吸收和转化了西方艺术进程中自印象派以来注重革新的现代主义和以观念艺术为核心的当代艺术形态，同时不可避免地也将西方艺术史的“文化逻辑”纳入到本土文化的生态系统，在受其启发和牵引（某种程度上也受其思维限制）的动态过程中，新的动力系统一方面带来了新的知识源和方法论，也为重新理解、激活和转化“传统”提供了契机。新世纪中国艺术的参照系统，已经脱离不了文化全球化的时代背景和本土文化在选择性吸收和创造性重构进程中的文化自觉。这也是王彦萍艺术创作的文化情境。
The rearrangement of habitat of indigenous art came as Western art techniques came into the East in the beginning of the 20th century. To create a correspondence with the phenomenon of Western paintings taking a strong presence in Chinese society, people gave a name to the art-form of Chinese painting, which uses rice-paper and ink “Chinese Painting”, it was to be differentiated from “Western Paintings”. The rise of nationalistic consciousness changed that name into “National Painting”. But in the gradual evolution of cultural concepts, the name “Ink & Water” became widely used, this is a new perception of the mediums used, this had given vast new space for the creativity of artists, the potentials of water & ink painting had to be revised at not only of the medium used, but also the concept, the technique and its characteristics, it had refreshed the creativity and imaginations of artists. Since the 1985 Art Movement, in 30 years, the Chinese art field had absorbed and transformed everything from Western art since the Impressionist age, everything from Modernism, which emphasize on innovation to the conceptual-based contemporary art. At the same time, the incorporate of “cultural logic” of the West into local cultural habitat was also inevitable, in the process of being inspired by as well as guided by (restricted to an certain extent as well), new motivations brought new knowledge and technique, it also provided an opportunity to re-understand, reactivate and restructure the “traditional”. The reference system of Chinese art in the new century is inseparable from the environment at large, the cultural globalization, and the indigenous cultural awareness enhanced in the process of selective incorporation which later causes the innovative restructuring of the indigenous culture. This is the overall creative direction in Wang Yanping’s artworks.
王彦萍经历过学院造型体系和中国画传统精神的洗礼，在对传统的理解上也具有一定的水准，但随着个人意识的成熟她逐渐发现这些训练型的内容并不能实现她强烈的创作意愿——表达她对时代和生活的真实感受。1980年代末期，一次去云南的经历让她找到了和自己内心深处相呼应的强烈感觉，植物旺盛的生命力让她开始找到生命的绿洲，茂盛的景观由物象转化为内心的心象，幻觉的感性涌起，仿佛电线杆都开始长叶，王彦萍开始用创作去捕捉和表现那种感觉。由此开始了她的创作生涯，刚开始画云南，后来逐渐从形象到色彩日臻强烈和心理化。大约在1990年代初期，她的色彩达到极限：用红和蓝隐喻着火和海，红蓝对冲的风格让她将内心深处强烈的感受本色地宣泄出来，王彦萍也凭借这批作品成为1990年代“中国表现型水墨”的代表人物之一，开启了她第一个阶段的创作风格。
The artist had gone through the teachings of structuralism at academic level as well as the baptism in the spirit of Traditional Chinese Art, she has a high level of awareness towards the traditional. However, as her sense of individual conciseness matured, she realized that these training were not enough to fulfill her wishes in creating art—she hoped to express her perception of the times and of life. At the end of 1980’s, a trip to Yunnan gave her strong excitement as she found external resonance which echoed with the sounds from deep within, the exuberance of plant-life helped her to find once again an oasis of life, the vibrant visions became an implant in her mind, a sense of hallucination came into play, it seemed even the telephone-poles began to grow leaves, Wang Yanping began to capture and express these feelings through her art. She began to paint these scenes of Yunnan, later the focus shifted from form into color, her spirit had bathed in sunlight. In the beginning of 1990’s, her use of colors had reached its peak: by using red and blue as a metaphor of fire and sea, she was able to fully and naturally express desires from deep within, the artist became an icon in the field of “Modern Water & Ink” in 1990’s, this had formed her earlier styles.
与那些标举“新潮”、“前卫”和“先锋”的艺术群体相异，王彦萍从未卷入那个时代的“激进主义思潮”，她更多地是以一种“画学”的理性方式去吸收和借鉴现代主义，当’85新潮的理论家和艺术家试图以“纯化语言”来匡正喧嚣的时代躁动时，王彦萍在1980年代末期和1990初期已经完成了一种相对成熟的个人风格，这批作品进行的是“现代主义”的文化选择，其中不乏野兽派强烈的色彩冲击力、立体主义的空间结构、超现实主义的潜意识幻觉和表现主义强烈的情感宣泄。确切地说，王彦萍在那时更多的是以一种现代意识去介入新时期艺术的文化语境，投身于对时代精神的诠释，但是作为创作中主导力量的却是王彦萍对于“个人话语”建构的强烈愿望，现代派各种风格在她的作品中浑然一体，各学派的因子更多是由独立视角导出“个人话语”的表意符码。这种独立的表现，源自她对于个体在特殊环境中存在方式的敏锐感知，她艺术上的精神支点建立在直面生活的心灵感受上，无论是《园林》、《个展》、《春光》、《模特》、《室内写生》抑或《红鸟》，各种亦幻亦真的水墨图像都是艺术家生活线索中潜意识和想象力与某个具体的情境碰撞化合后的心灵图式，离不开内在世界的感受。这批作品的造型方法使人联想到超现实主义的“心灵自动主义”，从这个角度讲，王彦萍是一位“向内关照”的艺术家。对比古代文人画所讲究的“写胸中逸气”，王彦萍早期作品中的梦境感是一种超现实状态下的瞬间感受，一种复杂思绪的释放和排解，而在表达方式上，许多作品与德国新表现主义的绘画理念想通，可以说这批被冠之以“心灵本位”（郎绍君）的水墨作品在“多重意绪”（范迪安）的表达上，走向了一种“文人化”的倾向。但王彦萍不是“书写逸气”，她笔下的心象也不是随风飘摇的梦境，而是一种“雄壮的演出”（殷双喜），她那以色当墨的用笔不乏粗野的色墨碰撞，映现出强烈的冲突，将观者引向了“日常状态之外”那种“非同一般的感受”，在猛烈的背后也不乏敏感的女性视角和细腻的感知方式。也许可以用“幻象”来界定那个时期王彦萍的水墨创作，“幻象”风格在现实结构、心理结构和绘画结构三者的“机”缝中找到了“同构”的平衡。
Different from those artists who are labeled “new wave” and “avant-garde”, Wang Yanping never took part in the “radical movements”, instead, she took a rational approach in the incorporation of Modernism techniques, when the artists and critiques of 85 New-Wave Movement tried to put sense back into the restlessness of the time by the “purification of language, Wang Yanping had already formed a mature and individualistic style during the end of 1980’s and early 1990’s. Her works then where “modernist”, there too were evident traces of Fauvist application of colors, Cubist spatial arrangement, subconscious hallucinations of Surrealism and lashings of emotion through Expressionism. The artist was trying to engage with New Age Art with a contemporary awareness, and to define the spirit of the times. However, the main motivation of those works was the strong desire of a “personal discourse”. In her art, the various styles of modern art were blended into an integral whole; the fibers of which fulfilled the role of ideographic symbolism in this “personal discourse”. Her strong sense of independence is a product of her sensitive perception of life in special environments, her spiritual pillars were built upon her feeling of dealing with life head-on. Part-true part-fantasy art-pieces such as《The Garden》、《Solo Exhibition》、《Spring Sun》、《The Model》、《Indoor Sketches》and《Red Bird》， seem to be a compound of her sub-consciousness and imaginations in life, they all meld together and is placed within a realistic setting, still inseparable from her world within. The structure of these works remind the audience of the Surrealist concept of “Psychism”, in light of this, the artist can be regarded as an “introvert”. In comparison to the classical ideal of “depiction of aloft visions”, the dream-like scenes in her earlier works were surreal moments captured or a release of complex fusions of emotion. Her artistic expressions were interlinked with German Neo-Expressionist concepts, it can be said that these ink & water artworks which are complimented as “psyche-based” (Lang Shaojun) have “multiple connotative” (Fan Di’an) expressions, and it veers towards something “scholarly”. It must be reminded that her art is not an attempt to “depict the aloft visions”, nor is it an adrift dreamscape, it is a “mighty performance” (Yin Shuangxi), her replacement of ink with colors made her art show clashes between the two, these clashes bring the audience “extraordinary sensation” and “a world beyond the norm”. Behind the turbulence is the refined and feminist perception. Maybe the word “mirage” could be used to define her earlier style, the reality, psychology and painterly mechanisms of the artworks finds its place through subtlety and creates a balance with the structure.
1990年代后期经历了西方世界的游历，王彦萍对中国的传统和西方艺术的现代性有了新的感悟，这也促使了她艺术风格的转变。1999年的《自画像》系列预示着王彦萍开始告别1990年代的“幻象”风格，首先告别的是“拥挤的空间”，《自画像》系列的构图方法和空间感因简化的趋向而逐渐开始“透气”，之前那种粗野、猛烈、冲突甚至压抑的心理矛盾“优化”为一种心灵的舒缓，视觉上也开始转向雅致和简洁，在个人自传式的时光速写中回味和憧憬着自己的人生；作为一位“绘画者”，从《自画像》开始，王彦萍开始自觉转向对西方艺术中的“抽象性”和“平面构成”的探索，通过马列维奇、蒙德里安和包豪斯等欧洲大师和设计团体，她延续了卢沉先生提出的“水墨构成”的中国画创新方向，并跟中国传统中的“经营位置”形成联系和交融，“正负形”、“统领规律”等一些原则的使用也让她在创作和教学体系的构建中贡献着自己的真挚与专注。
Her experiences of traveling to the West in late 1990’s gave her new visions in Traditional Chinese Art as well as Western Art; this had also brought a change in her style. 《Self Portrait》series of 1999 indicated an end of her “mirage” style. “Cramped spaces” were the first to be changed, the structuring of《Self Portrait》series became more ventilated as a result of structural simplification, the previous coarse, violent, and even depressive psychological dilemmas “transcended” into a relaxation of the spirit. Visually, things had also taken a turn for the more simplistic. She sketches herself in a biographical manner in retrospect of her life that’s gone past. As a “painter”, Wang Yanping begins with her self-portraits, this is for her a new beginning in the exploration of “abstraction” and “plane composition” of Western art. Through her contemplations of great artists in the West such as Malevich, Mondrian and institutions such as Bauhaus, she developed the concept of “ink & water composition” which was raised by Mr Lu Chen, created for raising innovation in Chinese painting. The artist was also able to incorporate traditional Chinese painting technique “positional arrangement” into her works, the application of “positive and negative form”, “command pattern” and other theories were practiced in her art, as well as taught in her classes.
在《自画像》系列的过渡后，《屏风系列》的出现和不断发展意味着王彦萍实现了创作上的新突破。屏风是中国传统室内家具中极为引人入胜的器物，也是古代绘画所热衷的绘画媒介和描绘对象。王彦萍的《屏风系列》将屏风从其原有的存在秩序中“抽离原境”，将其发展为一种独立的符号，横贯画面、顶天立地的屏风割断了观者的视线，占据了他们的视野，形成一种逼近之势。在这里，屏风不是普通意义上的一般家具，而是“屏风心理”的文化符号。王彦萍认为“与外国人的心理环境不同，‘屏风心理’是中国人的历史积淀，是中国文化中含蓄和隐藏心理的表征；屏风象征着中国人的性格，直到现在中国人也没有离开‘心理的屏风’，需要遮蔽、防范和隐藏的心理”。
After , the emergence and gradual development of were evidence that the artist had made breakthroughs in her artistic endeavor. Folding-screens has a special place in traditional Chinese furniture, it is also a medium used, as well as a subject to depiction by artists in classical times. In《Folding Screen》series, the artist removed the folding screen away from its “original context”, and turned it into an independent icon, they stretch across the picture frames, these indomitable screens cut across the vision of the audience, taking over their view and press towards the audience. In this instance, the folding screens are not ordinary items of home appliance, but a cultural icon of “screened psychology”. The artist believes “different to that of the West, “screened psychology” is the historic sediment of the Chinese, it is the appearance of the implicit and concealment of the mind in Chinese culture, the folding screen is symbolic of the character of the Chinese, till this day, the Chinese are still attached to the psychology of hiding and protecting the inner-mind”.
对于王彦萍来说，屏风既是实体的又是象征的，放在屏风里的任何东西都有折有隐，由于屏风的空间分离所产生的正\背之别会给人一种神秘的感觉。王彦萍开始将她熟悉的画室里的静物、模特和创作现场置放进屏风之中，在一种“极单纯”的清新之调中推进着她的绘画实验，《屏风系列》的《静物》、《草花》、《冷色》、《暖色》、《人体》、《单背椅》、《和平鸽》、《室内室外》等作品在不乏装饰意味的纯净中勾勒出一条不同于早期“幻象”的轻松愉快之路。以《屏风系列-八仙桌》和《屏风系列-民国桌》为代表的作品开始在屏风中做中国古典家具，在平面构成的提炼、错位和图像解构中，王彦萍重温了古典家具简洁的造型和独特的美感，从结构主义的角度去完成对中国文化的一种个人化的致敬。
For the artist, folding screens are materialistic as well as symbolic, everything placed in the folding screen have things showing as well as in hiding, the spatial divide was brought by the folding screens, creating a sense of mysticism. In an “ultimately purified” state of surrounding, together with the incorporation of still objects, models and her studio space, she begins her experiment, different from her earlier works, In《Folding Series-Classical-styled Table》 and 《Folding Series-Table of Nationalistic Era》begins to appear on the folding screens, through the applications of plane composition, misplacement and deconstruction, Wang Yanping revise the simplicity and unique aesthetics of antique furniture, thus completing her homage to Chinese culture from a structural perspective.
与静物和家具的“物之象”平行，屏风系列开始朝另外一类倾向延伸，关于“人之象”的《屏风系列-聚》成为王彦萍近期创作的主打方向，在屏风里展示人们的各种聚会。王彦萍的关注点从早年对画室和个人生活的私人空间扩展到了公共领域，经历了心境的转换、视觉的转换，观念的转换之后又进入到一个更新的阶段，就是关注中国的 “聚文化”，对社会性和公共性的介入。在这里屏风相当于一个载体，除了分离空间、隔离视线，其扇面结构的打开还具有转折的功能，视觉上的转折和观念上的转折。也许“折叠世象”的概念有助于阐释这批作品，所谓“世象”，即为感知系统中体现在文化上的世界之象。这批作品实现了视觉和观念上的“双重折叠”，从空间视觉进入到观念表达。王彦萍笔下屏风中的聚会，聚者聚在同一张桌或同一地点，但各自又被安排在不同的扇面转折状态中，不同的扇面转折可能代表了不同的心理状态，个体的这种独特性，以及这种独特性体现在个体和群体之间的关系，个体参与同群体显现之间的关系，很耐人寻味。如同意大利符号学家艾柯（Umberto Eco，1932- ）的美学，这是一种开放性的作品，它没有给观者一个不可商量的定性或者明确的价值判断，而是把一种思考的广阔空间提供给了观者。“屏风-聚”系列的独到之处是打破了各种聚的通常布局和人物关系，将其“屏风化”，置放进一个观念性剧场的“转折”排演中去，随着屏风扇面的折叠节奏形成作品意义的显示和隐藏。在空间观上，平面构成的设计思维、中国画传统的“经营位置”和篆刻艺术的“即白当黑”都沁入了创作时的绘画直觉，在图与底、形与反形、空与实之间，王彦萍将世俗化的现世图像沉于图底，经由几条勾勒屏风的细线给画面引入上升的心理感受。
Parallel to the “form” of still objects and furniture, begins to stretch toward another direction.《Folding-Socializing》which is related to “human characters” had become the artist’s most recent focus, all sorts of gathering of people are placed within the folding screen. Wang Yanping’s focus had shifted away from her private spheres onto one of the communal, after the transformation of the visual and the concept, her art had entered a new phase, the “Socializing Culture” of China from a social and communal perspective. Here, folding screens are a vessel, besides the segmenting of space and obstruction of view, the unfolding of the screens serve a purpose of transition, both in terms of the concept and the visualization. Perhaps the term “folded worldly perception” could better explain these works, the term “worldly perceptions” is the cognition of worldly matters displayed though culture. These works have achieved a “double folding” in both visual and conceptual terms, from spatial visualization onto conceptual expression. In the social gatherings as appeared on the screens, the socialites gather around the same table or in a same setting, yet they are all uniquely arranged upon the hinging of the screens, different forms of hinging could be interpreted as different psychologies, the character and the uniqueness of the individuals are attached to the relation between the participation of the individual and the revealing of the crowd, and the self revealing of the crowd. Similar to the aesthetical values of Italian semiologist Umberto Eco, Wang Yanping’s art does not force an evaluation upon the audience, but rather a vast space is given to the audience. “Folding-Socializing”series’ uniqueness is that it had broken the norms of arrangement and the character relationship in socializing. Having made it “folding screen-like”, then placed in a theater-like situation where it is left to keep on “folding”, the showing and the hiding is in rhythm with the folding of the screens. In spatial visualization, plane composition, positional arrangements in Traditional Chinese Art, positive & negative form, had all left their marks in her creative process, between the picture & the film negative, the shape & the transoid, the materialistic & the void, Wang Yanping sunk worldly visions into the profundity of her art, and uses simplistic elegant lines to sketch a sense of elevation.
王彦萍艺术的最大特征是超越了传统和现代、东方和西方二元对立思维的人为制约，以一个当代人对生命和时代切身感受的真诚立场去发挥绘画媒介自身的奥妙，突破了既有概念和法则的限制，扩展了用水墨去表现中国艺术精神和当代文化感知的视觉疆界。她育具象的形象于抽象和观念性的视觉法则之中，在拥挤和极简两种空间尝试中都留下了“因心造境”的水墨心印。这对学术界探索和讨论当代水墨画的发展与当代艺术的水墨表达提供了具有启发意义的个案。
The greatest character of Wang Yanping’s art is that it had surpassed the man-made limitations of binary opposition, placing the traditional against the contemporary, the East against the West, she puts her applications in full motion through her honest stand of her perceptions of people’s views of life and of the times, surpassing the limitations of concepts and rules, expanding the visual panoramas of the expressions of Chinese art through ink & water. She incorporates the materialistic into the abstract and the conceptual, and left her marks of “deep-down” in both cramped and minimalist spatial arrangement. This provides an innovative case study for the explorations in contemporary ink & water expressions.
王萌 2012年10月于中国美术馆
Wang Meng National Art Museum of China October 2012
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