The elliptical elements in the oil painting may initially have hints of human body parts

The elliptical elements in the oil painting may initially have hints of human body parts

In 1987, he had just stayed at the Academy of Fine Arts and painted his first abstract work: 'The Living.'. This work can be seen as a partial amplification of the "Football" series. In fact, some parts of the "football" series have been very abstraction, while "Life" seems to magnify this abstraction to the whole picture. It is still a strong brushwork, forming a zigzag structure in the picture. The relationship between brushwork, the thickness of the color layer, and the rhythm contrast between simple and complex show that this is the hand of a strictly trained painter with good professional quality, rather than the intentional destruction of the harmony of the picture in the abstract expressionism style. Although this may seem like a completely abstract work, it can also be seen as a continuation of the "football" series. As a transitional work from concrete to abstract, the main language of the screen is still the written strokes extracted from concrete painting and the formal treatment of the space, thickness, and density of the screen.

On December 22, 1988, the "Oil Painting Human Body Art Exhibition" was held at the China Art Museum. This was the first time that the People's Republic of China had held a special exhibition on human body art, causing a wave of public viewing. There were long queues in front of the art museum, and people flocked to the realistic human body works of Yang Feiyun and others in the west hall on the first floor. The serious ones, "the distance between the tip of the nose and the picture is only a small distance". In this historic exhibition, as a young teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts, Monrudin quietly presented his most complete series of abstract works at the time - the "Metamorphosis" series. But if it weren't for someone's guidance, it would be difficult to see that this series of works is related to the "human body". No wonder this series of works suffered a cold reception at the "Oil Painting Human Body Art Exhibition".

In the "Metamorphosis" series, Monroe Ding had already put down his brush hand painted oil painting and used materials such as rice paper for collage. The elliptical elements in the painting may initially have hints of human body parts, and a hint of sexiness could be faintly felt from the dizzy flesh color. Eventually, these extended into an independent painting language and developed into a complete series of abstract works. Compared to the visually intense paintings of Mon Luddin before, the Xuan paper collages in the "Metamorphosis" series appear particularly poetic and even elegant. Looking back now, the "Yuan State" series is not only the earliest complete abstract works series of Monroeding, but also one of the most pure and complete abstract art works series in China in the 1980s. In April 1990, Monroedin went to Germany and later moved to the United States, and the "Meta State" series was also frozen in the 1980s. However, the motif of "yuan" as anchored by Monroe Ding continued and developed into later "yuan speed" and "yuan color" series.

The precocious Monrudin had a different macro cultural thinking and theoretical preferences from his peers. Before drawing the "Metamorphosis" series, in 1988, he published two articles in the Chinese Art Journal, "The Process of Purification" and "Absurdity · Experience", proposing the famous proposition of "purifying language". He wrote in 'The Process of Purification': Each set of strokes, each contour line, the contrast and intensity of each color, and the texture of each oil painting are the language expressions that painters live alone in. Each painter uses these words and phrases to express their understanding of the objective world and their contemplation of their own soul, but the words and grammar used by each painter vary greatly, as well as their ability to control language and the perspective of expressing content, which makes oil painting reproductions painters form their own language characteristics Color also creates differences in height

In 'Absurdity Experience', Monroedin has clearly criticized some of the artistic trends and characteristics since the "85 New Wave Art": The art that considers itself to be engaged in a sacred and elegant mission has become meaningless here... People are doing things that they cannot see hope for, are helpless to engage in things that they know are meaningless, and do not consider value - value seems meaningless here... The only thing that can be confirmed is that this true mindset drives the direct process of life experience, and reveals and reflects this process in their own external manifestations, showcasing a true cultural reality Real

The perspectives of "purified language" and "absurdity and experience" are actually portrait painting complementary. First of all, Mon Luding deconstructed the grand goal advocated by the organizers of the modern art movement at that time, because in his opinion, this goal was not only personal feelings and experience, but simply replaced another shrine with a shrine, and the "truth" that individuals saw and experienced was still in a huge "aphasia", in fact, based on the artistic language paradigm at that time, Especially at that time, the cultural psychological structure and collective unconscious expression inertia behind the language form were impossible to express or make the vaguely perceived "reality" manifest. Therefore, Monrudin proposed to "purify". If we delve deeper, 'purification' is still an abstract term, portrait painting and here an interesting paradox arises between the ambiguity and ambiguity of language and the artist's intention to 'purify'. The meaning of a term not only lies with the speaker, but also depends on various aspects of information exchange such as context, code, receiver, and so on. For some people, 'purifying language' may mean a return to the principles of academic art; For others, it may mean the artist abandoning their role in cultural and social transformation. But if we look at it from a different perspective, in fact, Monroetin has adjusted his correspondence between the expression of language information and the scope of semantic functions. His starting point is the individual, and the goal of appeal is first the expression of language, rather than the exchange of information; His requirement for language is first of all the authenticity of the signifier, rather than the prescriptive meaning it refers to.