21世纪的水墨与焦虑——著名画家张江舟的人文主义情怀

The Q works, framed by the twelve Earthly branches of the ancient system of time, are more of a chaotic narrative, not easily made out. Blurred images have to be scrutinised and searched until we start seeing something. A figure, some legs, pointing feet with clear, delicate toes; a face, a woman in contemporary clothes. Anxious faces, sprawled bodies, scenes of seeming mayhem, scenes that make no real sense.Can we really 'read' these paintings? A sensation of unease, blurriness, disjointed lives, snippets of existence make us, the viewer feel giddy, unhinged, confused. These works come from a period much longer than two years...perhaps several decades, perhaps several hundred years or more - thousands!  Ink in China has a long and continual history from such early masters as Gu Kaizhi onwards and the continuous accumulation of visual language draws on this history, bringing it into the present, pushing conventions of ink into a pictorial language that is humanist, reaching a potency in its full and moody descriptive power.  Wash is used extensively and the tonal description of ink shows its full range from a pitch black to the palest grey, offset by the greens and pinks used for aesthetic and symbolic effect, breaking into a contemporary language that emphasizes the surreal and uncanny and enhances the dream-state of the imagery.

阙·戌｜纸本水墨｜130cm x 130cm 2020

阙·亥｜纸本水墨｜130cm x 130cm 2020

What was already there in essence can be seen in some of the 2019 works: a condensed, parted down cluster of totemic parts, the totem pulling elements that appear consistently: large, heavy hands, hands that are ancient, holding on, clutching, symbols of common humanity that date back to prehistoric times. These works are tightly conceived, forceful, enduring, produced using a direct form of expression that is loaded with emotional import. Amorphous forms are compact and sculptural, entailing a kind of binding together, some of the imagery recalling neo-modernist works from the post-war German artist, Baselitz and other forms of art from the early twentieth century in response to disaster and war. What we see is a paradox of the fragmented elements drawn together; sometimes, this clustered amorphous form, recognisable as traces of the human, is isolated at the centre of a void, a vast expanse within which it is centred, alone but intact, as though the very spirit has survived even when all else collapses around it.

There is a progression in scale in Zhang’s works in the recent period. The 2021paintings are huge, made up of sections, expanding the terrain of human drama across themes of love, loss, solace and abandonment. The effect is to amplify the humanity, rendering it more epic and urgent.

阙·未｜纸本水墨｜130cm x 130cm 2020