Emanating from Essence, pursuing an Eternal Question by Dr. Natalia S. Y. Fang Brand (art historian, literary and art critic, biographer, translator, poet and essayist)
Luo Zhen (1947- ) is a painter and sculptor who was born in Xiamen, Fujian, grew up in Taiwan, and has lived and travelled all over the world. Since starting her artistic career in 1976, she has gone through three major stages: until 1988, the “shadow of her childhood” dominated her thoughts; from 1990 to 1998, “embracement of humanity” was her main concern; and from 2000 onwards, “cultural contemplation” has become her dedication. So far, for more than a decade, the artist has continuously developed a wide range of ideas and experiments. By 2011, several series of her work such as “Prototype, Dysmorphism” (yuanxing yixing), “Gene Mapping” (jiyintupu), “Prototype Genealogy” (yuanxingxipu), “Prototype Crux” (yuanxingsuozai), “Gradual Regeneration” (ranran zaisheng), and “Regeneration Protogenesis” (zaisheng yuansheng) (in chronological order) were created, on the base of the ideal of essence of beings. In the last three years, having moved on from her past ideal once more, she has completed over thirty paintings and sculptures. Whether in technique, style, colour or form, they have been breakthroughs. The latest series is called “Derivation from Essence” (zhidiyansheng).
Artistic Style
If Luo Zhen’s works of the past thirty-eight years, from earlier figurative, through semi-abstract, to today’s abstract art, are seen together, the viewer can be affected by their state of unsettledness, strangeness, and suspense. When I see her 1982 painting “Leaving the World Behind” (yishi), having the sky with different layers of blue and buildings shrouded with cold and desolate aura, such an isolated landscape reminds me of the Spanish Renaissance painter El Greco’s (1541-1614) famous “View of Toledo”. Gazing at her 1994 “Asking the Heaven” (tianwen) in which expressionless figures walk against a dark background, I find it resembles the Irish artist Jack B. Yeats’ (1871-1957） “Men of Destiny”. And in her latest works -- for example, “Exquisiteness” (linglong), “Garden” (huayuan), “Spring Frolic” (xichun), “Form and Shadow” (xingying) etc, their tumultuous bright colours and distorted outlines look just like Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s (1863-1942) “Scream”. Yes, that’s right! Luo Zhen’s works are overflowing with emotions and moods. It’s obvious that they depict something which is very different from, even opposite to realism. Her style is expressionist.
Talking about art schools, the artist herself said:
When making art, I never think of any art school, but only let my output come naturally. If my works are similar to a particular art school, it can be seen that facing surrounding phenomena, the human mind has common resonance and response.
On another occasion, she also revealed:
When starting my paintings, I found myself to have my childhood wounds deeply buried in my subconscious mind; and I feel eager to search for an exit and to be released. At that time, my painting master asked me why I painted sad stuff. I could not answer. I knew neither that I painted sadness nor where it came from.
From her words, there is no doubt that art making for her is releasing something from the subconscious mind. Her art speaks of sorrow.
So what is expressionism? A Czech art historian Antonin Matějček (1889-1950）explained in 1910:
An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself... (an Expressionist rejects) immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures... Impressions and mental images pass through mental people’s souls as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence ...and are assimilated and condensed into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols.
Matějček is the first person coining the term of “Expressionism”. What expressionist artists’ creation relies on is not crazy, immediate or direct perception, but complex psychic structures. By taking visual images in and them assimilating and condensing them, the artists use simple forms to express their emotions. As a matter of fact, their works disclose their mental mapping.
The First Memory
What the expressionist style pursues is not objective reality, but rather subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within artists themselves. How about Luo Zhen? If we would like to understand her art better, we should trace the first shock in her childhood.
On 22nd October, 1951, at night, a big earthquake happened in Hualien. There was one little girl living in a local bungalow built in Japanese style. The floor surface shook drastically. Lumps of clay from the walls also began falling. One after another, the lumps fell on the mosquito nets. Soon, she and her family hurriedly ran out of the house. Outside, she saw many men and women and children lying all over the street. The earth still shook and people wailed piteously. Then, the ground started cracking and split open. A black deep trench appeared, opened and then closed. It was wide -- terrifyingly enough to engulf people.
Next day, the earthquake still continued. She dared not to enter the house and stayed in the next-door garden. She and other children surrounded a fountain and looked at fish swimming. Then, another strong blow of earthquake came. The pond collapsed. They all fell into water. Fish jumped around over them. Later, hearing that tsunami would arrive soon, her father got a black car. The whole family sat in and run for life by heading for the mountaintop. Along the road, she heard many people crying for help.
That night, she slept in a dimly lit farmhouse. But, she stared at light bulbs hung under the beam and saw them swing forwards and backwards, like a swing, because the earth still moved. Her ears picked up sound mixed with rain and human sobbing from outdoors as well as the cracking of every beam column indoors.
This was not in a split second, but throughout a one-day-and-two-night period of trepidation. This girl was only 4. So little, she witnessed such a big and frightening nightmare. Such experience forms the first memory of her life.
Who is that little girl? She is Luo Zhen, the artist.
Re-visit Childhood
Yes, when little, she has already tasted what turmoil was like and was aware of conflict. After growing up, she travelled all over the world, e.g. to Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, Korea, Canada, Mainland China, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Vatican City. Because her husband was for many years an ambassador, following him, she also lived in South Africa, Philippines, USA, Thailand and India, staying in each of them for at least three or four years. Once encountering helpless and defenseless people violently attacked during war or hunger, she couldn’t be herself any longer. That childhood shock unveils itself once more. Again and again, she seems to seek her childhood. The “re-visit” process stirs her creative desire. Under such circumstances, one piece after another, her works have been thus completed.
Since she started art work, undeniably, her childhood’s first drama has continually played a crucial part in her paintings and sculptures. Take some examples: in the 1980s’ figurative period, the paintings “Repose” (qi) and “Leaving the World Behind” depict a broken and twisted boat and a house on-the–verge-of-collapse which are situated in unknown places. The two landscapes look not only desolate but also scattered into pieces. Looking at them, there comes upon us a sense of chill. In the 1990s’ works, objects are made in a simpler manner. Outlines and substances are reduced. That’s the result of her old wound being played down. Semi-abstraction comes to the surface. For example, in the paintings “Asking the Heaven” and “All Mankind” (zhongsheng), the background is merged into total darkness whereas human figures, like ghosts, float around at the front in a scene of raging fire. It suggests that these human figures suffer severely. During that period, there were many wars going on in the world, including ethnic conflicts and genocides in Africa and the Balkans. Many works of that period were made after she saw the horrible scenes or heard the terrible news.
Next, gradually, she has become keen on abstract art. From 2000, in her works, hollow shapes always appear –- the “hole” imagery becoming so obvious. In addition, in her paintings, many stripes (lines) with different colours and thickness are juxtaposed, overlapped and intertwined. At first glance, they look like numerous flimsy threads or hair weaved into various organic curves. However attached, paralleled, or deviating from each other, they seem to wave elegantly. Today, the “hole” and “stripe” imageries are apparently her signature. In terms of thin lines, the trick lies in application of brush strokes. According to her words, it comes from calligraphy’s dry brush. Whereas most people are prone to use the ‘rendering’ method of ink art, Luo Zhen prefers to applying calligraphy’s dry brush and landscape painting’s texturing method (suo, showing the shades and texture of rocks and mountains by light ink strokes in traditional Chinese landscape paintings) -- so her favorable techniques have always been in Chinese culture and can reach the realm of “astringency” (se). How to re-enliven vigour is the goal of her efforts and desire.
Many wavy lines seem like graphic shivers which are connected to discomforting and terrified experiences of a long time ago. How about the holes? They resemble an opened and then closed dark trench, like the bottomless pit of old wounds. Doubtlessly, these are traces of re-visiting childhood.
It is worth mentioning that a person’s first memory often stands for a first challenge. Sin, excitement, shock, etc, aroused by it will be the beginning of one’s self sense of identity. The future’s psychological development will also start from this “prototype”. To artists, it will continue in later visual perception, subject exploration, and aesthetic attitude. Thus, it can be said that the key to a drive, operating and everlasting, for making art is the artist’s ‘first cut.’
Eternal Question
When digging out Luo Zhen’s works in depth, I realize that this artist is pondering an eternal question, that is, for smallness, if minimized, to human; to bigness, if maximized, to the human race. How on earth should one either endure suffering that life brings about, or take action to end misery? This reminds me of the great English writer William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) play Hamlet’s opening phrase of a soliloquy in “Nunnery Scene”:
To be, or not to be: That’s the question.
This is probably the most quoted sentence in the world’s literature. It sums up a Danish prince’s deep distress, conflict, and contradiction. Similarly, Luo Zhen’s art also deals with such a thorny question.
No wonder her works demonstrate vacillation of two opposite sides! On the one hand, they send out a kind of strong bizarre, misty and enigmatic aura as if ghosts wander around. It gives the viewer a sense of claustrophobia. On the other hand, they also represent an ascetic’s practice with a solemn, respectful and heroic posture. That’s why her paintings and sculptures look rather ambiguous and become so haunting. Luo Zhen has, to all intents and purposes, extracted essential liquids. One drop after another -- in the end, pliable, flexible, extendable -- fine art has been accomplished. Therefore, why not call her a clever alchemist?
What Light?
Light, electromagnetic radiation, visible to the human eyes, provides the crucial reason for the sense of sight. In the West, from the Renaissance forwards, owing to concern with chiaroscuro effects and realistic observation, “light” has become a crucial factor in paintings. Thus, for several hundred years, artists have brought it in and made many experiments when making art. Because of the chemistry caused by light, paintings make an evolutionary progress in aesthetics. When I asked Luo Zhen her attitude toward light, she answered:
Light? I hardly think about the matter of light. I pay lots of attention to form. I construct the form first and then figure out the whole structure. Then, I keep on making adding or reducing between the form and the structure and also making more alterations until perfect proportion is achieved.... The matter of brightness and darkness is only applied to represent or highlight the subject’s sense of layers, crystallization, and transparency as well as to serve as an echo or foil to the background.
Light in her art-making is ignored. Interestingly, her favourite painter is a French painter Pierre Soulages (1919- ) known for his black bulky shapes and thick stripes. His use of colours and structure andreciprocation of lines and dynamic energy have deeply enchanted her. The painter of blackness, Soulages once said:
When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field all of its own.
Light as his companion always worked for him. He allows light to reflect on black surface of his paintings so that black can come out from darkness and enter the bright world. For him, black finally becomes a luminous colour.
Here, altering Hamlet’s famous phrase of Hamlet’s soliloquy, I would like to propose:
Light, or without light: that is the question.
Luo Zhen’s paintings may not have Soulages’ complete-at-one-go hegemonic style. But her curves and flowing lines indeed express strong dynamic energy. Where does this come from? When reviewing her work, something came to my mind:
This actuating force is light. She doesn’t directly take from natural light, but from rays of light from her deepest feelings. I call it “divine light”. It makes layers of colours, and the inclinations of lines and their inextricability and interlacement. It streams everywhere. Actually, in her art, this light is ubiquitous.
Soul Comes Out
In fact, her work implies exploited and violated bodies, one after another. If dealing with the topic of human misery, many artists express themselves by being inclined to use hints, symbols, and metaphors. However, uniquely, Luo Zhen depicts has-already-been-smashed torsos -– penetrating skin, then directly touch subcutaneous tissue. Her work seems intense or paroxysmal, with voluntary or involuntary muscular contractions, oxidizing, burning, swelling and extending, etc. Looking at such these images, the viewer will feel disconcerted and frightened and also seem to hear the sound of growling.
Concerning these “misfortunes” of people illustrated in art, the English art historian Kenneth Clark (1903-83) has a good interpretation:
… this Christian acceptance of the unfortunate body has permitted the Christian privilege of a soul.
In tradition, artists often fell in love with perfect bodies. But since Spanish painter Diego Velázquez’s (1599-1660) portrayed dwarves and lower class people and Dutch painter Rembrandt’s (1606-69) depicted deformed female bodies, the situation has been dramatically changed. People now take “imperfection” seriously. Clark’s remark indeed points out this implication. Capturing helpless, distressed and injured people in art work is not to publicize, but to touch pain by applying the angle of empathy and sympathy. Naturally, a soul is expressed.
Some years ago, I read a late fifteenth-century morality play called Everyman where there are one Everyman and other 16 allegorical characters, each of whom personifies an abstract idea. The story is about the life of Everyman who tries to convince other characters to accompany him in the hope of improving his account in the course of his heading for his own death. Now, seeing Luo Zhen’s work, I am aware of the play’s awakening conversations:
One character Confession says to Everyman:
I know your sorowe well euery man
Bycause with knowledge ye came to me
I wyll you comforte as well as I can
And a precyous Iewell I wyll gyue the
Called penaunce voice voyder of aduersyte
Therwith shall your body chastised be
….
Confession offers Everyman a jewel “Penance” if he repents his sins to God and makes amends.
Another character Knowledge also gives Everyman “a garment of sorrow” made from his own tears:
Be no more sad but euer reioyce
God seeth thy lyuynge in his throne aboue
Put on this garment to thy behoue,
Which is wette with your teres
Or elles before god you may it mysse
Whan ye to your iourneys ende come shall.
….
Here, Everyman represents all mankind. Likewise, everyone’s states of circumstances and postures are well depicted by Luo Zhen. The viewer seems as if he or she attends an “astringency” symposium. Above all, in her art, she offers Everyman’s precious treasures -- a jewel of penance and a garment of sorrow!
What the painter has done is to explore all mankind’s eternal scenes of survival and struggle. For this reason, with her painstaking efforts, depth of soul is freshly and lively.
Transformation, Sublimation, Refinement
The main of each body is: smallness, if minimized, it could be a cell or a human being; bigness, if maximized, could be all mankind or the universe. Obviously, they are nameless, sexless, and expressionless. We don’t know when and where they are. Here, personality has been frozen. Individualism has been reduced to zero. As a result, what are they becoming? The answer is universality and immutability without restriction of time and space.
Luo Zhen’s work may have some spasms, convulsions and potholes which are traces left from her childhood. However, she has transformed, sublimated, and refined them, allowing them to mature. Finally, in a rather evolutionary manner, they have been condensed, becoming the threads and whirlpools of the dynamic energy of life.
In short, what the artist depicts are all mankind (which refers to you and me) and dynamic energy that the essence of being ignites. How heart-rending her works look! They shine out as divine light -- beautiful and dignified, which is eternal humanity!
Luo Zhen (1947- ) is a painter and sculptor who was born in Xiamen, Fujian, grew up in Taiwan, and has lived and travelled all over the world. Since starting her artistic career in 1976, she has gone through three major stages: until 1988, the “shadow of her childhood” dominated her thoughts; from 1990 to 1998, “embracement of humanity” was her main concern; and from 2000 onwards, “cultural contemplation” has become her dedication. So far, for more than a decade, the artist has continuously developed a wide range of ideas and experiments. By 2011, several series of her work such as “Prototype, Dysmorphism” (yuanxing yixing), “Gene Mapping” (jiyintupu), “Prototype Genealogy” (yuanxingxipu), “Prototype Crux” (yuanxingsuozai), “Gradual Regeneration” (ranran zaisheng), and “Regeneration Protogenesis” (zaisheng yuansheng) (in chronological order) were created, on the base of the ideal of essence of beings. In the last three years, having moved on from her past ideal once more, she has completed over thirty paintings and sculptures. Whether in technique, style, colour or form, they have been breakthroughs. The latest series is called “Derivation from Essence” (zhidiyansheng).
Artistic Style
If Luo Zhen’s works of the past thirty-eight years, from earlier figurative, through semi-abstract, to today’s abstract art, are seen together, the viewer can be affected by their state of unsettledness, strangeness, and suspense. When I see her 1982 painting “Leaving the World Behind” (yishi), having the sky with different layers of blue and buildings shrouded with cold and desolate aura, such an isolated landscape reminds me of the Spanish Renaissance painter El Greco’s (1541-1614) famous “View of Toledo”. Gazing at her 1994 “Asking the Heaven” (tianwen) in which expressionless figures walk against a dark background, I find it resembles the Irish artist Jack B. Yeats’ (1871-1957） “Men of Destiny”. And in her latest works -- for example, “Exquisiteness” (linglong), “Garden” (huayuan), “Spring Frolic” (xichun), “Form and Shadow” (xingying) etc, their tumultuous bright colours and distorted outlines look just like Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s (1863-1942) “Scream”. Yes, that’s right! Luo Zhen’s works are overflowing with emotions and moods. It’s obvious that they depict something which is very different from, even opposite to realism. Her style is expressionist.
Talking about art schools, the artist herself said:
When making art, I never think of any art school, but only let my output come naturally. If my works are similar to a particular art school, it can be seen that facing surrounding phenomena, the human mind has common resonance and response.
On another occasion, she also revealed:
When starting my paintings, I found myself to have my childhood wounds deeply buried in my subconscious mind; and I feel eager to search for an exit and to be released. At that time, my painting master asked me why I painted sad stuff. I could not answer. I knew neither that I painted sadness nor where it came from.
From her words, there is no doubt that art making for her is releasing something from the subconscious mind. Her art speaks of sorrow.
So what is expressionism? A Czech art historian Antonin Matějček (1889-1950）explained in 1910:
An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself... (an Expressionist rejects) immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures... Impressions and mental images pass through mental people’s souls as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence ...and are assimilated and condensed into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols.
Matějček is the first person coining the term of “Expressionism”. What expressionist artists’ creation relies on is not crazy, immediate or direct perception, but complex psychic structures. By taking visual images in and them assimilating and condensing them, the artists use simple forms to express their emotions. As a matter of fact, their works disclose their mental mapping.
The First Memory
What the expressionist style pursues is not objective reality, but rather subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within artists themselves. How about Luo Zhen? If we would like to understand her art better, we should trace the first shock in her childhood.
On 22nd October, 1951, at night, a big earthquake happened in Hualien. There was one little girl living in a local bungalow built in Japanese style. The floor surface shook drastically. Lumps of clay from the walls also began falling. One after another, the lumps fell on the mosquito nets. Soon, she and her family hurriedly ran out of the house. Outside, she saw many men and women and children lying all over the street. The earth still shook and people wailed piteously. Then, the ground started cracking and split open. A black deep trench appeared, opened and then closed. It was wide -- terrifyingly enough to engulf people.
Next day, the earthquake still continued. She dared not to enter the house and stayed in the next-door garden. She and other children surrounded a fountain and looked at fish swimming. Then, another strong blow of earthquake came. The pond collapsed. They all fell into water. Fish jumped around over them. Later, hearing that tsunami would arrive soon, her father got a black car. The whole family sat in and run for life by heading for the mountaintop. Along the road, she heard many people crying for help.
That night, she slept in a dimly lit farmhouse. But, she stared at light bulbs hung under the beam and saw them swing forwards and backwards, like a swing, because the earth still moved. Her ears picked up sound mixed with rain and human sobbing from outdoors as well as the cracking of every beam column indoors.
This was not in a split second, but throughout a one-day-and-two-night period of trepidation. This girl was only 4. So little, she witnessed such a big and frightening nightmare. Such experience forms the first memory of her life.
Who is that little girl? She is Luo Zhen, the artist.
Re-visit Childhood
Yes, when little, she has already tasted what turmoil was like and was aware of conflict. After growing up, she travelled all over the world, e.g. to Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, Korea, Canada, Mainland China, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Vatican City. Because her husband was for many years an ambassador, following him, she also lived in South Africa, Philippines, USA, Thailand and India, staying in each of them for at least three or four years. Once encountering helpless and defenseless people violently attacked during war or hunger, she couldn’t be herself any longer. That childhood shock unveils itself once more. Again and again, she seems to seek her childhood. The “re-visit” process stirs her creative desire. Under such circumstances, one piece after another, her works have been thus completed.
Since she started art work, undeniably, her childhood’s first drama has continually played a crucial part in her paintings and sculptures. Take some examples: in the 1980s’ figurative period, the paintings “Repose” (qi) and “Leaving the World Behind” depict a broken and twisted boat and a house on-the–verge-of-collapse which are situated in unknown places. The two landscapes look not only desolate but also scattered into pieces. Looking at them, there comes upon us a sense of chill. In the 1990s’ works, objects are made in a simpler manner. Outlines and substances are reduced. That’s the result of her old wound being played down. Semi-abstraction comes to the surface. For example, in the paintings “Asking the Heaven” and “All Mankind” (zhongsheng), the background is merged into total darkness whereas human figures, like ghosts, float around at the front in a scene of raging fire. It suggests that these human figures suffer severely. During that period, there were many wars going on in the world, including ethnic conflicts and genocides in Africa and the Balkans. Many works of that period were made after she saw the horrible scenes or heard the terrible news.
Next, gradually, she has become keen on abstract art. From 2000, in her works, hollow shapes always appear –- the “hole” imagery becoming so obvious. In addition, in her paintings, many stripes (lines) with different colours and thickness are juxtaposed, overlapped and intertwined. At first glance, they look like numerous flimsy threads or hair weaved into various organic curves. However attached, paralleled, or deviating from each other, they seem to wave elegantly. Today, the “hole” and “stripe” imageries are apparently her signature. In terms of thin lines, the trick lies in application of brush strokes. According to her words, it comes from calligraphy’s dry brush. Whereas most people are prone to use the ‘rendering’ method of ink art, Luo Zhen prefers to applying calligraphy’s dry brush and landscape painting’s texturing method (suo, showing the shades and texture of rocks and mountains by light ink strokes in traditional Chinese landscape paintings) -- so her favorable techniques have always been in Chinese culture and can reach the realm of “astringency” (se). How to re-enliven vigour is the goal of her efforts and desire.
Many wavy lines seem like graphic shivers which are connected to discomforting and terrified experiences of a long time ago. How about the holes? They resemble an opened and then closed dark trench, like the bottomless pit of old wounds. Doubtlessly, these are traces of re-visiting childhood.
It is worth mentioning that a person’s first memory often stands for a first challenge. Sin, excitement, shock, etc, aroused by it will be the beginning of one’s self sense of identity. The future’s psychological development will also start from this “prototype”. To artists, it will continue in later visual perception, subject exploration, and aesthetic attitude. Thus, it can be said that the key to a drive, operating and everlasting, for making art is the artist’s ‘first cut.’
Eternal Question
When digging out Luo Zhen’s works in depth, I realize that this artist is pondering an eternal question, that is, for smallness, if minimized, to human; to bigness, if maximized, to the human race. How on earth should one either endure suffering that life brings about, or take action to end misery? This reminds me of the great English writer William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) play Hamlet’s opening phrase of a soliloquy in “Nunnery Scene”:
To be, or not to be: That’s the question.
This is probably the most quoted sentence in the world’s literature. It sums up a Danish prince’s deep distress, conflict, and contradiction. Similarly, Luo Zhen’s art also deals with such a thorny question.
No wonder her works demonstrate vacillation of two opposite sides! On the one hand, they send out a kind of strong bizarre, misty and enigmatic aura as if ghosts wander around. It gives the viewer a sense of claustrophobia. On the other hand, they also represent an ascetic’s practice with a solemn, respectful and heroic posture. That’s why her paintings and sculptures look rather ambiguous and become so haunting. Luo Zhen has, to all intents and purposes, extracted essential liquids. One drop after another -- in the end, pliable, flexible, extendable -- fine art has been accomplished. Therefore, why not call her a clever alchemist?
What Light?
Light, electromagnetic radiation, visible to the human eyes, provides the crucial reason for the sense of sight. In the West, from the Renaissance forwards, owing to concern with chiaroscuro effects and realistic observation, “light” has become a crucial factor in paintings. Thus, for several hundred years, artists have brought it in and made many experiments when making art. Because of the chemistry caused by light, paintings make an evolutionary progress in aesthetics. When I asked Luo Zhen her attitude toward light, she answered:
Light? I hardly think about the matter of light. I pay lots of attention to form. I construct the form first and then figure out the whole structure. Then, I keep on making adding or reducing between the form and the structure and also making more alterations until perfect proportion is achieved.... The matter of brightness and darkness is only applied to represent or highlight the subject’s sense of layers, crystallization, and transparency as well as to serve as an echo or foil to the background.
Light in her art-making is ignored. Interestingly, her favourite painter is a French painter Pierre Soulages (1919- ) known for his black bulky shapes and thick stripes. His use of colours and structure andreciprocation of lines and dynamic energy have deeply enchanted her. The painter of blackness, Soulages once said:
When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field all of its own.
Light as his companion always worked for him. He allows light to reflect on black surface of his paintings so that black can come out from darkness and enter the bright world. For him, black finally becomes a luminous colour.
Here, altering Hamlet’s famous phrase of Hamlet’s soliloquy, I would like to propose:
Light, or without light: that is the question.
Luo Zhen’s paintings may not have Soulages’ complete-at-one-go hegemonic style. But her curves and flowing lines indeed express strong dynamic energy. Where does this come from? When reviewing her work, something came to my mind:
This actuating force is light. She doesn’t directly take from natural light, but from rays of light from her deepest feelings. I call it “divine light”. It makes layers of colours, and the inclinations of lines and their inextricability and interlacement. It streams everywhere. Actually, in her art, this light is ubiquitous.
Soul Comes Out
In fact, her work implies exploited and violated bodies, one after another. If dealing with the topic of human misery, many artists express themselves by being inclined to use hints, symbols, and metaphors. However, uniquely, Luo Zhen depicts has-already-been-smashed torsos -– penetrating skin, then directly touch subcutaneous tissue. Her work seems intense or paroxysmal, with voluntary or involuntary muscular contractions, oxidizing, burning, swelling and extending, etc. Looking at such these images, the viewer will feel disconcerted and frightened and also seem to hear the sound of growling.
Concerning these “misfortunes” of people illustrated in art, the English art historian Kenneth Clark (1903-83) has a good interpretation:
… this Christian acceptance of the unfortunate body has permitted the Christian privilege of a soul.
In tradition, artists often fell in love with perfect bodies. But since Spanish painter Diego Velázquez’s (1599-1660) portrayed dwarves and lower class people and Dutch painter Rembrandt’s (1606-69) depicted deformed female bodies, the situation has been dramatically changed. People now take “imperfection” seriously. Clark’s remark indeed points out this implication. Capturing helpless, distressed and injured people in art work is not to publicize, but to touch pain by applying the angle of empathy and sympathy. Naturally, a soul is expressed.
Some years ago, I read a late fifteenth-century morality play called Everyman where there are one Everyman and other 16 allegorical characters, each of whom personifies an abstract idea. The story is about the life of Everyman who tries to convince other characters to accompany him in the hope of improving his account in the course of his heading for his own death. Now, seeing Luo Zhen’s work, I am aware of the play’s awakening conversations:
One character Confession says to Everyman:
I know your sorowe well euery man
Bycause with knowledge ye came to me
I wyll you comforte as well as I can
And a precyous Iewell I wyll gyue the
Called penaunce voice voyder of aduersyte
Therwith shall your body chastised be
….
Confession offers Everyman a jewel “Penance” if he repents his sins to God and makes amends.
Another character Knowledge also gives Everyman “a garment of sorrow” made from his own tears:
Be no more sad but euer reioyce
God seeth thy lyuynge in his throne aboue
Put on this garment to thy behoue,
Which is wette with your teres
Or elles before god you may it mysse
Whan ye to your iourneys ende come shall.
….
Here, Everyman represents all mankind. Likewise, everyone’s states of circumstances and postures are well depicted by Luo Zhen. The viewer seems as if he or she attends an “astringency” symposium. Above all, in her art, she offers Everyman’s precious treasures -- a jewel of penance and a garment of sorrow!
What the painter has done is to explore all mankind’s eternal scenes of survival and struggle. For this reason, with her painstaking efforts, depth of soul is freshly and lively.
Transformation, Sublimation, Refinement
The main of each body is: smallness, if minimized, it could be a cell or a human being; bigness, if maximized, could be all mankind or the universe. Obviously, they are nameless, sexless, and expressionless. We don’t know when and where they are. Here, personality has been frozen. Individualism has been reduced to zero. As a result, what are they becoming? The answer is universality and immutability without restriction of time and space.
Luo Zhen’s work may have some spasms, convulsions and potholes which are traces left from her childhood. However, she has transformed, sublimated, and refined them, allowing them to mature. Finally, in a rather evolutionary manner, they have been condensed, becoming the threads and whirlpools of the dynamic energy of life.
In short, what the artist depicts are all mankind (which refers to you and me) and dynamic energy that the essence of being ignites. How heart-rending her works look! They shine out as divine light -- beautiful and dignified, which is eternal humanity!
