XI. On the Simple Life by Zhao Zhengrong: Oesophageal Speech of Chair Du Monde

The Simple Life, it seems that nothing is simpler than daily life. Once life world is restored to the intrinsic passion of life, the simpleness and unsimpleness of the simple life are deeply penetrating a intrinsic uproariousness and dysphoria of life and deeply penetrating a intrinsic running life desire of the times so as to find rhythm of individual breath, thereby to touch truth of world itself. This is chair du monde that has the same resonance with the self body by touching; as French philosopher Merleau-Ponty of the 20th century, he finds chair du monde by painting and returns life to the body that has not been split apart but can be touched, which is perception on the world itself.

Zhao Zhengrong’s series works named as The Simple Life, maybe, you will see a complete different style. Seeing from a further distance, the image is unreadable utterly, or, the image refuses to be read and concerned completely; the life seems to be covered a piece of purdah. Seeing from a closer distance, you will see a chaos stirred by daily life, figure bodies are bonded together, which makes you unable to breathe.

Seeing from further distance, and even further, these works with height of four meters need you to appreciate from a far distance so as to avoid being sucked in by the thick breath, thus you can see imbalance between upper lattices and lower paints, and you can feel there is a stream of breath running secretly on the image, and you will try to approach and close to the image.

Seeing from closer distance, and even closer, only approaching and closing the image you can feel a stream of pressing breath spraying into your face, as if the painter himself places the canvas level to draw and throws the whole body to the canvas; it seems that the painter submits himself to the canvas. The body appreciating the image can touch the breath generated by the image, so that you also want to join, or you want to touch the blended body, or you want to pull them out, or you want to escape from the image.

Either closer or further, the body is main shaft in tension of vision and paradox of staring. Zhao Zhengrong’s works open a staring space and open the most original relation between the artist himself and the paintings. The body in painting is absent, or, the closer the artist approaches to the image to throw the body to the canvas, the more absent the body is. Only dripping and erasure with paints, only picking up the episodes and sections, the image, particularly the image concentrated in the midsection as oesophageal speech of the painter, can try to say that the painting is HYPERLINK "app:ds:twittering" \t "_self" twittering of chair du monde itself by a different sound between the rhythm of painting and the opened sections.

Yes, closing to Zhao Zhengrong’s series works named as The Simple Life is not only staring again and again but also is listening to the most profound oesophageal speech on the canvas. The painting surface overlaps the most profound power, thus the body on the canvas has sexy empaistic texture; the surface of the image conceals the original power of life that seems a stream of white light may flow out from deep image; excitement and chortle of life resounds in vague; that is an inscription of joy converting individual life and gloomy times to paintings. The painter seems to let the overlapped body replace him to speak, and this is the most affecting and indefinable oesophageal speech and is an original sound poured out from deep world.

Appreciating Zhao Zhengrong’s works is a huge challenge on reading for us. On one hand, they are nearly unreadable and even refuse to be read and appreciated; this is restoring the feeling to touch, but it needs patient to carefully appreciate them. On the other hand, these works are durable, so that we are HYPERLINK "app:ds:fascinating" \t "_self" fascinated in front of Zhao Zhengrong’s works and stay for a long time. The paints seem to crowd in ball, and the body seems to twist in one; a stream of dysphoric breath accumulates on the paintings as squirming intestines and stomach; this is a return of life as original life texture. Zhao Zhengrong returns our bodies to the original desiring soul by his complete experience of life. Therefore, the image is also squirming and running; the moving stream of breath looks like flowing out from spectators’ bodies, or, once we meet the works, the intrinsic accumulated breath is also stirred.

Of course, for that the painter draws hidden lattices on the background of image, is it a rational mark? Or is to generate comparing effect? This breaks spatial balance and remains dual experience of interlacement and kneading, which more strengthens chaos breath of midsection of the canvas in order to make us keep a clear head in dysphoria.

At the beginning, these works have figure images. Some figures look like just walking from the crowded (The Simple Life 1), they meet on street, or they still clasp hand of each other (The Simple Life 11), but this encountered world is different from our daily life. And suddenly, they adhere and blend together (the figures of The Simple Life 2 and 3 begin to overlap with each other); they seem to be kneaded by some element. Perhaps, such adhering sense of kneading enlightens sense of softness, so that Zhao Zhengrong’s works are called representative works of soft modernism, and are soft and adhered as oesophageal speech.

The painter is trying to change our way of staring, not only is staring, but is touch, and even not only is watching daytime and lost in dark night, but is that the painter is trying to find another world from this world: a daytime in the daytime and a dark night in the dark night. This is staring at chasm. The artistic touch of very time is to deeply penetrate to the chasm, which is the significance of Chinese easel painting. To penetrate to the midsection of the chasm is to recognize the life mood of ourselves and to let us to touch the truth of individual life and the world.

The significance of Chinese easel painting lies in reentering the body of world to experience the life emotional appeal when the individual mortal body generates resonance with the world, to find a changed rhythm of a times, and to search for an original sense of form.

Although movies and animation have an impact on the vision, easel painting still remains the original memory of chair du monde. How does Zhao Zhengrong recover the original language of painting and power of vision? This is the restoration of the most fundamental relationship between easel painting and the world.

A good painter never fails to provide a chance to think back to modern arts and even think back to the probability of the arts in itself for us. For me, Zhao Zhengrong’s works are a chance and an ineffable challenge for my life. My thought is only to respond to the chance and to give gratitude to the chance, just like Luo Qi and Zhao Zhengrong, as painters, theirs encounter is the chance of soft modernist painting. Zhao Zhengrong’s works provide an example for us to make a consideration on the new probability of easel painting. Thus, it involves some basic links in easel painting that need to be faced by the artists.

Firstly, easel painting regenerates itself in receiving and converting the way of perception of the new times.

Our vision has been different from that of the classic and modern painters, which is one aspect of the art called developing with the times, but not refers to theory of evolution and view of development. In fact, art does not have superior or inferior distinction, but is changed with the technologies. Our present life world has been altered by technologies, it’s impossible for us to see the world by way as classic painters, as well as by theirs affection directly resonating with chair du monde. Our present perception is easier to be shattered and is more flexible. There are full of running pseudoscopic scenes everywhere in animation and conceptual photography. Of course, there also has tension in animation and conceptual photography, which appears stronger desire when the technologies pursue clearness and definiteness. Meanwhile, illusion and strange and foreign experience become more basic dynamic power.

Easel Painting must study the resolution way of image art, too, but the resolution way must be absorbed and converted based on the characteristics of easel painting. Easel painting must convert a new visual impact and change the old way, therefore, it’s impossible to draw animation or cartoon. That is to take easel painting to close to the movies, is on the contrary; to absorb new way of perception should convert the ontology language of easel painting.

We see that a series of conversion cases in art history have converted to the new way of perception at that time, either impressionism or cubism, or Baconn’s acceptance of movement brought by photography, or even Richter’s concept of creating a photo, but not drawing a photo, and just combining realism and abstract.

The painter has his own understanding on painting materials. The canvas and paints are different form the materials of movies and photography. Thus, they are different at the beginning.

But Zhao Zhengrong’s works flow a stream of cloud favor on the static square lattices as cine film. The un-representative and unreadable color blocks refuse to narrate, but we feel a power and touch the truth of life when we are facing the cloud breath. What the painter deeply penetrates is the truth of feeling, and what chair du monde deeply penetrates is the intrinsic reality of life, is not presentation and phenomenon that we can see. This is direct arrival and entering the stage of life itself.

What Zhao Zhengrong wants to seize is flowing airstream and airflow of life and what he wants to try is combining the transformed spirit of Chinese traditional breath-image and metaphysics of the western light-image. Thus he brings the new way of perception.

Secondly, easel painting is reconstructed in inheriting and converting traditional forms and colors.

The artists must confront the difficult problems of arts in the times. That is how to find a way of representation that still is a flowing form of life between rationality of technology and unform of life. The experience on life of Chinese traditional culture is not to struggle and fight in light or dark as the west, but is to enable breath of life to flow without unsmooth, and is to defuse depressive breath.

The artists must absorb inspiration from the western existed painting language, must search for a star group belonging to you from art history by your own preference, must rebuild art history by their own painting language; every original painter rewrites the art history by his own language to strengthen the ignored new probability in the art history; the excellent artists in this times should also reach some consensus, which is not consistence of painting style but is standard of art interest, to form a conversation relationship for each other in color and form. Our education on art history has not developed strict analysis on image from color and form, thus the artists should follow the past artists’ path, couldn’t draw relying on interests and hand feeling, but should have some own intuition and experience on the revolution of color and form of the art history.

For artists in our times, it’s impossible to directly draw cartoon and animation, or it is to cancel the meaning of easel painting by itself; it should make innovations from the relationship between color and form in the canvas and from visual or perceive way brought thereof as well. Although it is quite difficult, the artists must have confidence.

Moreover, China has thousand-year ink painting tradition and abstruse way of seeing, which is different from the west. How to convert them? It’s not to form a way of drawing traditional Chinese painting by oil painting, also not drawing oil painting by traditional Chinese painting, but is a deformation through conversion of form and restoring of feeling. This is s problem without solution, thus there is a new probability of easel painting.

The clear and steady lattices in Zhao Zhengrong’s works are not abstract marks in form, but seem a kind of scale-caculated painting with ready pattern. In addition, all Zhao Zhengrong’s works are nearly four-meter high, this height has plentiful means revealed by the form; and it not only refuses general gallery and exhibition hall, not only has traditional vertical visual effect, but also conveys imbalance in vision. The upper part of one third is steady and balanced square lattices, and the lower part seems to be crowded and accumulated by heavy paints, just such falling sense strengthens the power of oesophageal speech in the midsection.

Furthermore, Zhao Zhengrong’s way of painting is not to upright the canvas (Strictly speaking, it’s not the way of easel painting), but a little likes Pollock’s dripping way of painting. Pollock commits himself to the paintings, slowly dripping paints, slowly erasure, repeatedly covering, and apply erasure again and again. From blockage to blockage, partial topological space is larger than the power of the whole, which implicates the overlapped texture of chair du monde (The Simple Life 9, 10, and 17 reflect such effect); thus, a spatial distance is opened as Pollock gets away from the canvas, this is a drip relying on arm’s shaking. But for Zhao Zhengrong, he does not only shake his arm, but also uses his whole body slowly as squirming. Yes, it looks like oesophageal speech, squirming with the phantom of body, or being possessed by demon; it is to overturn the whole body of the painter who wants to overturn the whole picture, replace the picture, and become the picture; in fact, the painter does not completely close to the picture, it is the gathering of breath and is to open the field of qi.

That the whole body trends to the canvas and devotes to the canvas is extremely important, which is realized by opening the field of qi. Meanwhile, this also opens the field of qi of the body, which is the affection of chair du monde and qi of the world. Therefore, Zhao Zhengrong’s paintings are not abstract, not detailed, and not imagism. Although his images have figure’ contours and gestures sometimes, they are a kind of climate, a kind of flexible atmosphere, a block of breath of embodiment of denseness exactly. Thus that color causes blocks of breath flowing is chromatic halo and light halo generated when blocks of breath meet obstacles. This is a stream of breath flowing between color blocks and bodies, either unsmooth or thickening, either bright or dark. The whole body is displaced into changes of color, thickness of paints, and brightness contrast in the drip and brush following with the breath and sense of paces of painter himself.

Thirdly, easel painting establishes itself by opening the new space-time field.

With opening the field of qi, the chair du monde of a stream of breath comes by way of non-image and non-phenomenon. And the field of qi will show a new space.

Only penetrating into chaos, the artist can reopen the new space as Nietzsche talked about relation between chaos and art in Will to Power: the art is permeation and flow of vigorous physical body penetrating into image and figure world. If the art is relating to staring, the painting makes us see daytime in the daytime and dark night in the dark night. Seeing from close distance, we may see some images and scene indeed, but for these ambiguous things we saw in daytime, although the white image brings sense of light, what we see is not a daytime world, but is madness falling into daytime which is caused by over closing to the dysphoric breath of this world. Among the running crowd on the street, especially on the shopping street, the streams of people guided by impulse buying are streams of running desiring machines, namely, river of desire. We get together in the running river, we are stirred together (The Simple Life 3 and 4 have seized the desiring streams at the beginning), we are enticed by glittering goods, but we are not without judgment, just give it up and follow guide of desiring streams selves. Therefore, Zhao Zhengrong seizes the most intrinsic desiring stream of the times. And the water of this river is abnormal viscid that adheres each other as breath and blood condensing into a classified block. Due to the endless running desire, we are in a mad state in daytime; thus we couldn’t see our desires of our own clearly, we are overlapped together and blended together.

If we see the later works without lattices (The Simple Life15 and 18), we also touch the other side of chair du monde, which is the dark night in the dark night. A stream of black pours from the four-meter high picture and covers the images under the picture. Staring the dark night in the dark night is to see the other kind of dark night, not the dark night opposing to daytime as transition, but is to stare another kind of dark night in the dark night, which is open of a life space. Obviously, this is impossible, only if the painter once felt his unprecedented isolation and loneliness of the world.

When life is restored to the feeling that is brought and harmonized by the paints, the harmonized paints become unique in Zhao Zhengrong’s painting. This is a filled air mass brought by the black that is harmonized from the blended paints on the picture, however, the life must be returned to the intrinsic emotion elements, this is a shout from the filled mass. From The Simple Life 18, we see the coming dark night on the picture with circular body language; in fact, we couldn’t see the dark night in the dark night, but when we staring the dark night, we become our blind selves and become our blind spots. The brush lies in breaking through the blind spot and breaking down the spot; the dark night in the dark night is calling us to be blind persons, thus to save brightness that is possessed by the darkness only. That is a life like ghost, that is the touch on different life, and that is the sound of others brought by oesophageal speech. That is the image touched by the power of chaos, is not seeing, but is converting seeing into touch. While in the dark night of the dark night, there is a visible and survivable secret: that is the form of passion and suffering of life. The art is searching for the form and field of the times.

Therefore, breaking symmetrical balance in space, the body with relief sculpture brings stronger sense of touch; these works are recalling us to close to as Zhao Zhengrong’s recalling on people seeing in close distance. This is to enable life to touch each other by breath between readable and unreadable, and to touch and open a field of breath in life.

Fourthly, easel painting is the most vivid convey to a basic emotional appeal of a times.

Easel painting has intrinsic power which couldn’t be possessed by narrativity of movies and TV, because easel painting still has the power of condensing breath of life and showing it into form. Then, what is the most profound emotion in the times? That is gloominess told by Zhao Zhengrong’s paintings. Therefore, Zhao Zhengrong’s works reveal the most profound emotional appeal. Zhao Zhengrong seizes the breath of the times observantly, this is gloominess brought by the gloominess, is not self depression and melancholy, but is thick gloominess that can not be defused. That is a plugged breath, which is pressed in the deep heart.

What Zhao Zhengrong’s paintings open is an emotional space, is a peculiar emotional field of life in the times. The breath condenses here, and is plugged again and again, which can not be mediated. However, Zhao Zhengrong’s works are try to find an export for the gloominess of life, which is a secret save of soft realism to the individual life. Some places as dark channels in the picture will run some light sometimes. The light bringing shout and breath from the cloudy breath converts breath into light, which is neither model nor image, but is seized by tension.

The painting tries to soften the heavy desire, thus may relax in the dark night. Entering into the dark night of dark night, our lives lie down as Zhao Zhengrong’s lying paintings. It looks like a huge body, according to fantastic rhythm, from part to part, from erasure to erasure, as transpositional images in dream, indefinable lines, abrupt blockage and breakage, abrupt brilliant rays and flame, according to fantastic rhythm, in the midsection of the world, Zhao Zhengrong tries to search for a channel to gloomy mood.

Maybe, painting is the opening of such channel and is the dialect of the oesophageal speech.