21世纪的水墨与焦虑——著名画家张江舟的人文主义情怀

The backdrop of humanist cultural expression in Chinese art can be relevant to understanding these contemporary works. After the first burst of humanism appeared in paintings in the late1970s, the decade of reform in the 1980s allowed such expression to expand and diversify, alongside literary, photographic and cinematic trends. In ink, the most enduring of artistic forms since at least the Song dynasty, there has been a real renaissance of the medium in China during the past three decades.  Echoes of modern ink works seem to sit alongside other traditions of modern art, with elements of German expressionism, and pish masters such as Goya, perhaps Velazquez even coming to mind. The fusion of expressionism and abstraction hovers here between a surreal disturbing and dreamlike vision, and a kind of mundane, lived reality of everyday life. Floating, suspended figures recall (to my eyes) Chagall, and other earlier Christian paintings in the Western canon, all there in ghostly form, barely discernible but echoed in some way. Nature, spirituality and human suffering are visible in an anguished swirl of survival, compassion, swimming in and out of focus, watery, fluid and uncertain. Zhang’s own painterly voice is complex, layered and borne of decades of a sustained artistic practice, exploring the medium and honing his subject matter to a level of fluency and immediacy that provides a direct and powerful visual communication.

What is compelling about these works is their refusal to be clearly read, clearly understood, leaving space for confusion and questioning, as reflected in their visual style content abs also in their titles. As a series, they are carefully framed within sets of ideas, lending rigour to their creation as a quest, a kind of exploration of a state of being that is characterised by overwhelm, anxiety and the urgent need to survive. 

惊蛰｜纸本水墨｜200cm x 200cm 2021

风语｜纸本水墨｜200cm x 200cm 2021 

The symbolic use of colour in these works, - the use of pinks and greens, also add a lightness and clarity to the ink palette, jolting the viewer into the contemporary moment. Glimmers of some truth held up in the capturing of emotion amongst the throng: hope, strength, heart. These swirling, energetic works are bold, moody, searching. Ink is used with sweeping strokes, wash, lines, building dynamic compositions that are moving as everything seems to be drawn into certain directions, beyond the control of those caught up in this storm.Ideas about helplessness seem to be central themes, as people are presented clinging on, letting go, waking up, stirring, living, existing...a survival that tallies with the local and global situation.

Zhang has poured out these scenes in these works of ink on paper in a compulsive flow of creative output, that has a sense of urgency, reflected in the works and their coherence at this moment in time. Some are triptychs, held in a close-knit narrative of pictorial disjuncture - they fit together as a narrative whole, but they also feel deliberately disjointed and awkward. Human catastrophe are offset by everyday mundanity. The dramas of existence are laid out in a kind of Dickensian fray of competing storylines; yet they are surreal and immersive, swamping our thoughts to blot out of any rational means of understanding. With Zhang’s humanism and depth of empathy, despite the despair, we feel some warmth and glimpses of redemption in these strong emotive works. His generosity lies in the gift of this painterly outpouring.（Katie Hill, Programme Director of MA Modern and Contemporary Asian Art, Curator）

画家简介

张江舟，当代水墨艺术家，中国水墨人物画领军者之一。中国国家画院院委、研究员、博士生导师。俄罗斯国家艺术科学院荣誉院士、中国美术家协会理事、中宣部文化名家暨“四个一批”人才、文化部优秀专家，享受国务院特殊津贴专家。曾任中国国家画院副院长、《水墨研究》执行主编。