Hidden Garden

Artists: CHEN Lizhu, WAN Yang 
Whitebox Art Center, B07, 798Art District, No.2 JiuXianQiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing

Feelings often exist within the concealed depth. Artists attempt to explore the essence of the world and human beings with sensible forms. Since the Renaissance, classical Western paintings have submitted to the mode of “mirror image” to faithfully reproduce the depicted object, with figurative forms to capture the people, objects, and landscapes one’s eyes can see, or the surreal tableaux existed only within literary, mythological, and religious narratives, forming a breathtaking visual entanglement. When the dawn of Modernism, artists broke away from representational forms to dissect and deconstruct retinal perception of materiality—to enter and convey the uncharted realm of colors and structures, and to unveil the truth of nature and humanity. Cézanne remarked that “except for the surface, there are more deeper things in nature,” echoing the profundity of humanity. Modern art originated from the thing-in-itself so that it freed paintings from the “simple visible objects, and no longer reproduce the mere appearance of “objects.” It aimed to penetrate the visible and reach the depth of existence. Through the visible and invisible, the known and the unknown, the specific and the abstract, form and concept, to establish a connection between the internal perception of human beings and the essence of the world. The logic of art also went from fixating on techniques, materiality, and forms to abstraction, the spiritual, and concepts.

The new generation of Chinese abstract painters has become more specific in their practices and concepts. The two artists in this exhibition—Wan Yang and Chen Lizhu, are two unique cases. The paintings of Wan Yang have always been a quest for the logic of feelings. He is fond of music and cycling and prefers regularity and order in his life and work. His works often begin with a 3D-printing palette, sketching out square or hexagonal grids, and manually transferring the colors from the palette onto the canvas. The grids transform into the boundary of his freedom, where brushstrokes and colors intermingle between adjacent grids and spread on the canvas. His colors grow from the divided space until the composition is completed. In his own words, to finish a work is like the completion of a building. In his paintings, extreme rationality can always reach the realm of sensibility at last. Chen Lizhu’s works center on an exploration of space and sense. The Meditation series on view could be seen as a continuation of her previous Space series. To her, painting is a process of excluding external influences and a form of introspection. Through sumptuous layers of colors and brushstrokes, she delineates a space with depth that expresses seemingly infinite variations within the constraint of a canvas, which became a vessel for the artist’s time and memory. The works’ atmospheric rendering of the border between the color fields in the composition conjures up the hazy aura of Song Dynasty paintings. Her works are marked by their monochromatic, poetic, and tranquil qualities filled with spiritual intensity—to counter our tumultuous world with a sense of calmness. 

With regard to the discussion on form and concept, Susanne K. Langer’s analysis of human feelings and Theodor Adorno’s “truth content” can provide an anchor for this topic. With their specific practices, concepts, and intuitions, the two artists establish a highly personal and recognizable visual language, arriving at unseen visual depths through the control of color and structure, thus stimulating a hidden wealth of perceptual systems. This exhibition aims to contemplate how artists, through clear concepts and specific methods, explore the veiled yet concrete connection between visual forms and the essence of the world and human beings.