THE WEIGHT OF LOVE WITH LUST

I personally think that Shi is one of the most significant artists in history by expressing love and desire in Chinese water ink painting. Moreover, I even think that no one else like Shi, a Chinese ink painter, could create the motif as woman with animal, soul with flesh, love with desire, frenzy with intoxication in a harmony, yet with an inspiration. From this point of view, the way Shi conveys love and lust is serious, as it not only extends the deep part of desire and flesh, but also arouses people to scrutinize love, and lust as well.

It is with no doubt that the tendency of Shi’s water ink painting of such motif can be only realized essentially in nowadays, at times when opening to the world, as well as to individual soul and flesh. Meanwhile, we may also discover that the time of opening is referred to more a propaganda of feeling, desire, love and sex, which were abandoned by rationalism, hierarchy, ethics as well as dictatorship, which can be identified and interpreted presently. The depiction on emotion, desire and sex through Shi’s works, however, echoes the contemporary, represents the symbol. I would like to bring the following characters of Shi’s expression to such specific theme:

Firstly, Shi, like a philosopher, creates woman in abstraction, as the nude woman could get rid of race, nationality, religion and hierarchy as well, turning woman into nature and abstraction. It relates to Shi’s emotion in his expressive abstraction of love with desire, and it results in that such desire forms an ideal world, which is the harmony between man and nature, emotion and love, inspiring the imagination of world of Eden. In other word, his expression seems as if it happened what Raussau predicted the uncivilized times, with natural, pure, frank, and naïve quality.

 Secondly, the art language in Shi’s works, is more formed by shapeless brush ink than straight, determined and minor lines in creating the visual image, establishing a mild, vague and yet peaceful ambience, in order to convey the distance between space and psychology of realistic life in nowadays. From the perspective of art, the distance not only brings us aesthetical fineness by sensing the weight of love with desire, but also the introspection in the position of love with lust.

Thirdly, as for Shi, indulging in love with lust is, probably the highest form of realizing life by its own value. From the series of his recent works, he concentrates more on degeneration and enjoyment after passion, than the high passion as theme of lust. It means that the desire he tries to express is its weight by plummeting life form.

        It is always the focus that artist has been trying to pursue the deliverance of humanity and desire. Obviously, the achievement that Shi makes efforts in art is unique, because his ink language interprets the particular meaning contained in life style of love and desire, by both the light and heaviness.

By Zou Yaojin, March of 2006, Wangjing of Beijing