Message from a celebrity in Wang Xinsheng

Doctor of art history

Director of China Artists Association

Member of Theoretical Committee of China Artists Association.

Executive editor of art magazine

Cross-cultural phenomenon is an increasingly common problem in today's social development. Cross-cultural phenomenon in art is more common in the creation of some artists who live, settle down or emigrate. On the one hand, these artists who live and work abroad express their humanistic feelings consciously or unconsciously in order to adapt to the cultural survival of foreign countries, and their artistic language and expression methods mostly follow the popular artistic style in the host country; On the other hand, these artists naturally reveal the aesthetic feelings of the mother culture, and even some basic artistic judgments and opinions can't get rid of the influence of the mother culture. This has formed the cross-cultural characteristics of these artists' artistic creation.

Wang Xinsheng, who moved to Houston for nearly 20 years, clearly reflected this cultural leap in his artistic creation. On the one hand, he described the daily life of contemporary American people with relatively realistic oil paintings, and created some public figures in the eyes of American people through portrait painting, from which it is not difficult to see that the author, as an American citizen, is closely related to their thoughts and feelings; On the other hand, the artistic features of his oil paintings hide the deep imprint of China local culture. For example, his grass-roots series, musician series and jazz series all depict Americans, but the objects chosen by the author are mainly concentrated in the bottom of American society, especially some socially critical black beggars, Vietnam veterans and street artists. These works with realistic ideological characteristics are undoubtedly closely related to Wang Xinsheng's art education in China. For another example, he chose realistic oil painting as the basic form of his painting, which not only adapted to the aesthetic taste of American local art collectors, but also facilitated the ideological expression of his realistic artistic creation. It is worth noting that his realistic oil paintings are far from the trend of following European traditional realistic oil paintings in China, and more or less reflect the charm of American abstract expressionism. But more importantly, his image realism, which can be used as a symbol of his personality style, comes from China's mother culture, especially the freehand brushwork of Chinese painting, which constitutes almost all his artistic inspiration and image talent. For example, in addition to describing characters, he also created landscape works such as Zen Lotus Series, Water Lily Series, and Rain Crane Starts Spring. However, these works, which are full of Zen and Heaven, hardly belong to the aesthetic category of western landscape oil paintings, but are closer to China's flower-and-bird paintings. Obviously, in these flower-and-bird works, Wang Xinsheng used light and color to impress the scenery, but created philosophical poems and artistic conception of oriental culture in aesthetic connotation.

Wang Xinsheng, born in 1949, is a typical peer of * * * and China who was born in New China and grew up under the red flag. His growing experience masked too many political and cultural changes he had experienced in this new country. This cultural experience undoubtedly paved the way for him to pay attention to the spiritual background of realistic art, which is closely related to ordinary people. He was born in Xi and grew up in Henan. These two ancient places of China's history and culture have watered the spiritual foundation of his art, which is his maternal blood that will not be dispelled no matter what culture he crosses. As a lucky man of an era, he lived in the United States in the 1990s of reform and opening up. In the center of contemporary world art, he devoted himself to the study of western tradition and modern and contemporary art. In the process of becoming a painter in the United States, he endured the hardships of foreign culture, and finally established the critical point of eastern and western art in the exploration of cultural leapfrogging, thus forming his own unique artistic personality and style.

Wang Xinsheng's works are the research objects of cross-cultural art history.

2011August 18 Art District, No.22 Siheyuan Street, Zhang Zikang, Beijing.

Curator of Today Art Museum

To discuss art from the perspective of artistic success, the first step is to create symbols, the second step is to create status and the third step is to create history. Modern art society pays more and more attention to visual symbols related to the present society, that is, visual symbols related to beauty or visual shock, and satisfies the audience's pursuit of excitement by creating some artificial wonders. The symbolization of his works will fade and the artist's face will become blurred, so most artists will try their best to maintain their consistent symbolization style; Either the artist turns himself into a symbol, which is another way. Of course, the best works are those touching, involving a kind of empathy related to the times.

There is no doubt that Wang Xinsheng is such an artist who cares about contemporary society and has rich emotions. His imagist works of art have formed distinctive visual symbols, which are related to the feelings of the times and touching.

In the eighteen years since he left China, Wang Xinsheng naturally integrated his simple feelings about China traditional culture and China art into his oil painting world, forming an artistic style combining imagery with realism. There are several kinds of works on display: jazz series, Tibet series and grassroots series. Jazz is very popular in America. Last year happened to be the 20th anniversary of jazz. Wang Xinsheng learned about American jazz clubs through Wu Daqiu, the former chief clarinet player of the Central Ballet. In this club, he felt the exciting and soul-shaking power of American jazz at different levels. Musicians are skilled, have no music, and improvise. Music has become a part of their lives, and their performance skills and forms are touching. Tibet is the closest place to the sky and will always be a mystery in the hearts of people all over the world. Through the Tibet series, more Americans can learn about China. In such a holy land, there are hard living conditions and harsh environment, but there are devout beliefs and tenacious survival forces everywhere. Grassroots series basically reflects the life of the lower classes in American society, such as unemployed workers and street ronin. These paintings are shocking and let people see the other side of America.

Let's wait and see the art of American painter Wang Xinsheng! And wish it success!

20 1 1/ Change of Intention/Today Art Museum/Beijing/Peng Feng, China

Combining the freehand brushwork of China traditional painting with impressionist oil painting to create new oil painting language and artistic conception is the direction that China painters have been working hard for generations since they took the initiative to learn oil painting. Mr. Wang Xinsheng, who is engaged in oil painting creation and education in the United States, is also exploring along this road and has achieved gratifying results.

In his early years, Wang Xinsheng studied Chinese painting with Chen Jingtang, a master of Chinese painting, and he had high attainments in figure painting. When I was in college, I changed to oil painting, which laid a solid foundation in sketch and color. In the early 1990s, Wang Xinsheng and his family moved to Houston. After a short period of adaptation, he found his own development direction in art education and oil painting creation. For more than ten years, thousands of students have studied in Wang Xinsheng Art School. They have won almost all kinds of awards in important American art competitions and become well-known art schools in North America.

Besides teaching students, Wang Xinsheng never stopped his oil painting exploration. During his college years, Wang Xinsheng received strict training in realistic oil painting, especially the landscape paintings of European impressionist masters. After arriving in the United States, it is still fashionable in China, and Impressionism, which was impacted by contemporary art, has become a dusty history in the United States. However, Wang Xinsheng did not enter the popular field of contemporary art, he did not make installations, images and behaviors, and even did not follow the path of American pop art. Instead, it combines the freehand brushwork of Chinese painting with the light and shadow of impressionism, forming its own unique style. From the perspective of the United States, Wang Xinsheng's oil paintings have successfully integrated foreign elements and created a new look by reviewing history, so they can generally be classified as postmodern art camp. However, from China's point of view, Wang Xinsheng's oil paintings are very different from the popular post-modern art, because he did not connect the two cultures through the splicing of themes, but actively explored the painting language, instead of using the past for the present through post-modern appropriation, so it can be said that he made an important advance in the modernity of China's oil paintings.

As we all know, the rise of impressionist painting is an important breakthrough in the concepts and techniques of classical oil painting. Unlike classical oil painting, which pursues eternity and ideal truth, Impressionism pursues eternity and realistic truth. For this reason, impressionist painters not only emphasize the observation of nature, but also emphasize the capture of light and color, retaining the traces and accidental effects of painting, making the picture more lively. China artists have long found that Impressionism is closer to China's paintings than classical oil paintings, especially freehand brushwork. Although Impressionists emphasized the observation and study of nature, what they painted was not nature as an objective object, but the impression that nature left in human senses, especially in vision. To paraphrase the English empiricist philosopher John Locke (1632- 1704), impressionism draws the secondary nature of matter, not the primary nature. The so-called secondary attributes are attributes related to the senses, such as color, sound and smell; The so-called first nature is the nature that has nothing to do with the senses, such as shape, movement and numbers. Relatively speaking, classical oil painting pays more attention to the first, while impressionism pays more attention to the second. If it is not in a strict sense, the primary nature of matter is close to the primary nature that has nothing to do with the subject, and the secondary nature of matter is similar to the secondary nature of subject reconstruction. As far as the distance from the first nature is concerned, Chinese painting has something in common with Impressionism. But unlike impressionism, the so-called second nature in Chinese painting is not the impression in the eyes, but the image in the chest. For China painters, the impression in their eyes is the first nature, and only the image in their hearts can be called the second nature. In other words, if the objective thing is the primary nature and the impression in the eyes is the secondary nature, then the image in the chest is the tertiary nature. Chinese painting is not only a description of the objects in the chest, but also a pursuit of special interest and personality through writing. Zheng Banqiao clearly explained this point in a painting. He distinguished the bamboo in his eyes, the bamboo in his chest and the bamboo in his hand. As far as bamboo is different from bamboo, bamboo is the fourth sex, which is farther from the first sex. It is not so much nature as culture. In this sense, although Chinese painting is closer to impressionism, it is closer to culture and impressionism is closer to nature. Impressionism is between the first nature and the second nature, and Chinese painting is between the third nature and the fourth nature, so the difference between impressionism and Chinese painting is quite obvious, although there seems to be a certain degree of kinship between them. It is this similar but different feature that makes the combination of impressionism and freehand brushwork possible.

Wang Xin's oil paintings absorbed the advantages of Impressionism in observing and studying nature. His figure painting, landscape painting and still life painting are basically sketches, thus getting rid of the stylized tendency of Chinese painting caused by ignoring nature. However, Wang Xinsheng's sketch is not limited to the shape of objects, he pays more attention to the creation of atmosphere and the expression of emotions, and adds some expressionist elements to Impressionism. In order to highlight the brushwork of oil painting, Wang Xinsheng painted with a painting knife, leaving traces of painting on the screen without reservation, so that emotions can be directly revealed on the screen. The addition of words has got rid of the obsession of the impression party illusion and made the picture more enjoyable.

What needs to be emphasized is that when Wang Xinsheng combined impression with freehand brushwork, he did not sacrifice the advantages of both, nor did he neglect one side, but let them complement each other. This is related to his teaching practice in the United States. The key to teaching oil painting in America is to teach oil painting well, not in which country. This makes Wang Xinsheng not over-amplify the role of freehand brushwork in oil painting, but absorb and use it reasonably. Therefore, although Wang Xinsheng absorbed elements such as words and images, his works still have typical oil painting characteristics. To do this, we must have a new breakthrough in technology and a good balance in mentality, otherwise it will be difficult to be impartial and fully absorb the advantages of both.

Wang Xinsheng not only has his own unique exploration in oil painting language, but also can pay attention to social problems and express his prayers for a better life of mankind. Wang Xinsheng painted a series of oil paintings on the theme of American beggars. These works are not for sociological or political purposes to expose the dark side of American society, but for instinctive sympathy for people in trouble. These works were exhibited at Harvard University, which caused great repercussions. After the Wenchuan earthquake, Wang Xinsheng worked around the clock, and finished The Pain of Earthquake 5. 12 and The Wish, and mobilized all sectors of society in Houston to donate money to the people in the earthquake-stricken areas. Recently, to commemorate the centenary of the Revolution of 1911, Wang Xinsheng painted a series of oil paintings to commemorate Sun Yat-sen. This series of creations not only showed Wang Xinsheng's sensitivity to social issues, but also showed that his oil painting language had strong adaptability and could freely express the life and feelings of contemporary people.

Although Wang Xinsheng is concerned about social problems, his paintings do not rely solely on themes, but try to combine themes with the exploration of painting language, so that content and form can be integrated and complement each other. This feature is particularly evident in Wang Xinsheng's series of works with jazz as the theme. Wang Xin chose jazz as the theme, on the one hand, he valued the sociological significance of jazz as a social phenomenon in the United States, on the other hand, he valued the artistic characteristics of jazz itself, such as contingency and improvisation. Because this feature of jazz coincides with Wang Xinsheng's pursuit of painting aesthetics. In Wang Xinsheng's paintings, we can see the passion, frankness and magnificence in jazz. Wang Xin likes music very much. Many of his friends are fats waller, and he often paints with music. Pursuing the rhythm and rhythm of music in painting makes Wang Xinsheng's paintings have strong freehand brushwork and expressive force.

Wang Xinsheng's oil paintings are very popular in the United States because they combine the advantages of impression and freehand brushwork and pay attention to the reality of the United States. However, although Wang Xinsheng has moved to the United States for nearly 20 years, his works are still rooted in China, and he pays more attention to China. I believe his works will also be deeply loved by the audience in China. Because Wang Xinsheng is busy with teaching and creative tasks, he seldom goes back to China, and his works are rarely exhibited in China. On the one hand, this roving exhibition in China is Wang Xinsheng's report to the people of the motherland, and on the other hand, it is a good opportunity for domestic art lovers to observe Wang Xinsheng's works. I sincerely wish the domestic exhibition tour in Wang Xinsheng a complete success!

2011April 18 in Weixiu Garden, Peking University.