孙健玮始终对信仰和存在的问题孜孜不倦，同时他也是尼采和海德格尔的忠实读者。他早期的许多作品借鉴了基督教叙事性绘画里的死亡和哀悼以及在宗教里的复活和救世的场景。

孙健玮对于所有的宗教都十分感兴趣，不论是教堂还是清真寺或是寺庙，他都欣然前往。在他2010到2011年所创造的最新作品中，他将刻画重点放置在佛像和哲学的戏剧性场面上：虔诚的敬拜、死亡与涅槃、在幻像中不可思议地探视死后的景象、炼狱里极端痛苦的场面。这一切也可以被解读为：卷入生存危机之中，人们亦如此挣扎。

他的许多作品都是以洞穴为素材，这种隐喻很聪明，尽管洞穴与世隔绝，但诚然是我们所处世界的一部分。

如同后来的熏烟将一些模糊的层次加注到洞穴的墙面上，孙健玮以一些若有若无，在这个世界之中又在这个世界之外的层次健立了画面。

他受启发自龙门石窟和乐山大佛的，这些奇异的自然景象竟拥有如此技术和能力惟妙惟肖地刻画出佛祖的神韵。
他采用了雕塑和仪式两种语言。他一层层地造型粘贴来造成缓冲，由稀释的丙烯酸来上色，一层接一层地画。在这一方面，它的技术与会用15层之多的墨来画一片树叶或一片花瓣的中国水墨大师有异曲同工之处。接着他用稀释过的油营造出微微闪烁的斑点，以增加深度感和丰富感。他的实践本身是沉浸在不断重复着一个动作，正如一个和尚不停念经一般。

他绘画中的人物保有虔诚的姿势，聚集在闪烁的烛光周围，或者蹲坐在佛像之前，以致很难分辨出哪里是雕像而哪里是香客。在他绘画中的人物，形似鬼魂，但是从虔诚这一角度说又很人性化。他们的脸总是从一个未知的来源处被点亮。这个光源来自他们雕像般的脸上。

有时他们占据了一个小凹室， 但其他时候又占据了一个拜神的较大的地方。他们的神色交流看起来更像是一个公共事件，发生在一个宏伟巨大的的台阶上比如说在“婆罗浮屠”2011。

在很多孙健玮的作品里都有涅槃这一题材，看起来奄奄一息的病人，躺在一尊棺材里四周围绕着哀悼者(“莲花池八号”2011)。孙健玮接着带我们走进了一个停留点，介于这个世界与下站诡异的极度痛苦的状态之间，其中的人物有着哀求的眼睛和嚎叫的嘴巴。身体奇异地扭歪进而产生空隙。（莲花池4号和地藏菩萨摩阿萨” 2011）

这些人经常是由地藏菩萨持的，一个持有权杖的地狱公民的监督者。孙健玮对这个神明尤为感兴趣因为他觉得它可以带给他的一个朋友一些运气以使他恢复健康。地藏菩萨也象征着信仰会给他人带来救赎。据地藏菩萨本愿经所记载，一个女子因为孝心，恳求她的母亲从地狱中被释放出来。他的热切的祈祷被证明是富有成效的，她的母亲被释放了出来。

佛教概念里的地狱要经受十八层的苦难，包括有石磨、铜柱、刀山。
这些惩罚意图强化道德标准，包括五戒：一不杀生，二不偷盗，三不邪淫，四不妄语，五不饮酒。

孙健玮认为人们应该在戒除这些恶习的基础上来净化自己， 莲花在他的作品中占了很大的比重，它代表了净化的过程。莲花出淤泥 － 人们存在的粗劣，然后在水里伸展它修长的枝干（这个动作代表了人们的经历），最后从水里探出头来。一个强有力的枝干（象征着内在的不屈不挠）使它上升到相当的一个高度并且获得教化从而远离世俗的肮脏。

如“浮屠”这样的绘画是以闪闪发光的蜡笔所描绘的地平线加以淡黄色和淡紫光兰来描绘的 － 由一个沉浸在光明中的虔诚的和尚所留下的圣物箱。

传说这个和尚的灰烬里有诸多宝物，这是他们精神成就的证明，而毕竟这个构筑物是用来存放经文和其他圣物的。

尽管有这些田园诗般的作品，孙健玮在作品中对存在这一问题的回答并不简单，他的绘画屈从于一些暗色的石头，一层接一层地逐渐变暗直至最后对于死后灵魂生活的快乐这一承诺看来仅仅只是一个模糊的影子。




Sun Jianwei and the Art of Being
By Rebecca Catching

Sun Jianwei has always been interested in questions of faith and existence and is an avid reader of the writings of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Much of his earlier work borrows from Christian narrative religious painting with scenes of death and mourning but also of resurrection and salvation through belief.

Sun takes an intellectual interest in all faiths and will visit a church as happily as he will visit a mosque or temple. With this latest series of works created from 2010 to 2011, he focuses on Buddhist imagery and philosophy offering a range of tableaux which feature scenes of devout worship, death and transcendence, miraculous visions of the afterlife and torturous scenes of purgatory – which could equally be interpreted as the fits of someone entangled in an existential crisis.

Much of his work takes place in a cave – a clever metaphor – which describes a place which is both cloistered from the outside world, but also part of our world nonetheless.

Like the subsequent smudges of smoke which add layers of obscurity onto the walls of the cave, Sun Jianwei builds up the surface of the canvas, creating layers of seeing and not seeing, of being in the world and being outside it.

He was inspired by the uncanny nature of the Buddhist statuary of the Longmen Grottoes and the Leshan Buddha, its superior craftsmanship and its ability to capture the spirit of Buddhism.

His technique applies both a language of sculpture and of ritual. He begins with layers of modeling paste to create relief, which are colored by diluted acrylic washes, which are painted on layer after layer. In this way, his technique mimics that of the Chinese ink painting masters who would apply sometimes as many as 15 layers of ink to create one leaf or petal. He then adds a sense of depth and richness with slightly shiny patches of diluted oils. His practice itself is steeped in the art of ritual – of repeating an action over and over as a monk might repeat a sutra.

The figures in his paintings take devotional poses, clustered around flickering candles or huddled in front of Buddhas and it is often hard to discern where the statues end and pilgrims begin. The figures which populate his painting, look at once ghostly, but also human in their devotion. Their faces are often lit from an unknown source, the light tracing the hi-lights of their statuesque faces.

Sometimes they occupy a small alcove, but other times a much bigger place of worship, a cavernous hall buried deep in the side of a mountain. In other situations, their communion with the spirits seems more of a public affair, taking place on the steps a grand monument “Borobudur Stupa” 2011.

As with much of Sun Jianwei’s work, we see the topic of transcendence with ailing figures which look as if they are on the way out of this world, ones laying on a bier surrounded by mourners as with “Lotus Pond, No.8,” 2011. Sun then takes us to a waystation somewhere between this world and the next a Boschian state of agony, with beseeching eyes and howling mouths, bodies distorted into bizarre contortions and gaping voids (“Lotus Pond, No.4,” 2011 and “Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,” 2011”.)

Often these people are presided over by the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva – a figure holding a scepter who is the overseer of the citizens of hell. Sun is interested in this deity because he believed it brought luck to a personal friend of his in recovering from an illness. The Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva also symbolizes how faith can bring redemption for others. In “Sutra of The Great Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,” a girl demonstrates a great act of filial piety, praying for her mother to be released from hell. Her fervent prayers prove fruitful and the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva releases her mother, but not first without first offering the pious girl a glimpse of the horrors which await sinners.

The Buddhist concept of hell involves 18 different levels of suffering, which includes different punishments such as being put into a grinding machine, or having boiling liquid poured down ones throat, being boiled and steamed in cauldrons or having to climb mountains composed completely of knives.

These punishments are meant to help enforce codes of ethics, including the Five Precepts: which include taboos against, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct (adultery, rape etc.) lying and intoxication.

The artist feels that man should rise above these human vices to purify himself, and the lotus flower, which plays a large role in his work, represents this journey of purification. The flower rises from the mud – the baseness of human existence – and extends its slender stem through the water (an action which represents human experience) before it finally rises above the water. A strong stem (symbolizing internal fortitude) allows it to rise to quite a height and attain enlightenment and distance from impure earthly affairs.

Paintings such as “Stupa” 2011 speak to these promises of enlightenment with great glowing horizons of pastels. The work rendered in light yellows and periwinkle blues depicts a stupa – a reliquary for the remains of devout monks bathed in light.

Legends hold that the ashes of the monks often contained jewels – evidence of their spiritual achievements while on earth – and the structures were also used to store sutras and other sacred objects.

Despite these idyllic works, Sun Jianwei’s oeuvre offers no easy answers to the question of existence with his paintings succumbing to darker tones, becoming darker and darker, layer after layer until the sunny promises of the joys of the afterlife seem only a faint shadow.

林白丽