唐华伟的绘画：精神的观想

　　顾振清

　　人之所以是人，皆因人是有思维和精神的存在。人的存在是精神性的存在。人的精神是一种超越时空局限的、形而上的存在。这种精神存在是无形的。而现实却是有形的。在艺术家唐华伟看来，在现实中，正是艺术把无形的精神变成一种有形的、有意味的形式。艺术是人的精神存在的一种重要形式。它把人的精神存在变成一种形式化的现实，即语言现实、行为现实等等。艺术语言与艺术行为的种种现实，其实都是人的精神现实。

　　在唐华伟的画中，精神与形式同样重要。人始终具有内在的精神。精神的出路就是某种外在的形式，不是这种形式，就是那种形式。但人的精神的体现不能没有形式。形式是精神在现实中的一种有形的体现和展开，精神则是形式的一种形而上的提升和超越。唐华伟孜孜以求的形式创造之一就是线条表现。在画布上，其画笔如走龙蛇，其画刀游刃有余，创造了无数灵动、张扬而又充满力量感和生命感的线条。尽管唐华伟的线条模拟的是植物自然生长、蔓延之气象，然而它们却常常突破形象之桎梏而成为一种随性的书写和表达。

　　近年来，唐华伟一直有一种选取单一题材的想法，并将之推到极致的念头。他仍喜欢采用风景画题材并借用具像表现主义风格。然而，他2013-2014年的油画画面上已很难见到镜像现实模式的自然风景。巡视唐华伟这一时期的画作，满目皆是一种未知植物的枝枝蔓蔓。但其中的各个系列却各有各的主调，彼此相互构成意义支撑。其实，唐华伟所画的是一种“新主观”绘画。他塑造的是出自内心世界的一种主观化的人造风景。而那些既像藤蔓、又似青纱帐的未知植物也是一种艺术家主观臆造的人造物。它们只是艺术家内心隐秘、复杂而又无可名状的某种精神存在的外在表现形式。它们有形，但徒具一种似是而非的植物外形。其实这种外形只是一种形式化的载体和一种语言化的外框，它们所承载、框定的是艺术家不断所赋予其中的精神、思维和观念。它们其实是一种不折不扣的精神植物，而且还能伴随艺术家主体的精神成长而成长。这种人造的精神植物虽是一种蕴含艺术家精神、思维和观念的图像化客体。然而，它们一旦进入公共语境，即有可能自我生长、蔓延甚至异化，变成不完全受艺术家主观意志把控的一种“有机”的形式语言符号。从美术史来看，任何进入传播过程的艺术图式和图像，包括艺术家极具个性和私密性语义的“人造物”，都是公共的精神文化资源。观者在接受它们时究竟是见仁见智？还是歧义丛生？其结果也是艺术家难以预料的。

　　在唐华伟油画《仲夏夜》前，观者首先领略的是一种再现艺术的范式模写。具像叙事风格、黄金分割的风景构图、焦点透视的道路形象及其尽头的消失点，一切似乎中规中矩。画面让人想起他对基弗尔美学的引借。但其奇崛之处却是道路两边排列有如青纱帐一般密实、纷繁的“人造”植物。然而，只有经过静观，或再次观看之后，观者才能感受到画面有条有理的内在逻辑，甚至梳理出拥挤在道路两边每根植物有始有终的伸展脉络。唐华伟的画面以道路消失点为中心，辐射出四条或明或暗的直线，把画面分割为道路、夜空、两边植物四个三角块面。他以点线面的基本视觉规则统摄、规范整个画面。图像秩序严整，呈现出艺术家在画面造景过程中的高度理性。然而，每根疯长的、强有力的“人造”植物却极具主观化和感性的精神特征。它们犹如由心而生的精神植物，深刻表达了艺术家内心骚动的过程和结果。密实而纠结的精神植物形象，似乎指代了艺术家不断悸动的心绪和不断发散的思想。一些植物顶端的颜色完全转换为黑色，犹如一种暗物质，融入无尽的黑夜。《仲夏夜》整幅画面以黑色和暗色调为主，却丝毫没有颓废感和负面情绪，相反蕴含着一种希望和救赎。

　　唐华伟2014年的油画基本上呈现为一幅幅纯粹的精神景观。这种精神景观传达的正是艺术家极具个性化经验的心理现实。他的画面上，密密匝匝、层层叠叠的未知植物在色调灰暗的空间氛围里狂乱地生长、伸展。整个场景似乎充满了一种来自生命本源的野性激情与非理性的活力。枝枝蔓蔓的未知植物形象在唐华伟的油画中长盛不衰，比比皆是，几乎成了他的一种图式化符号。而在唐华伟2014年的油画之中，《仲夏夜》与另一幅风景《月光下》却是观者认知、解读他所有“人造”植物的钥匙。它们具有形象处理和形象性质转换的关键意义。在《仲夏夜》、《月光下》传统化的风景构图中，画中植物尚具有客观现实世界的高粱植物(或藤蔓植物)与主观心灵世界的精神植物的双重意义。而在这两幅画之外，它们几乎都转换成了不折不扣的精神植物，成为唐华伟主观世界的拟物和喻体，指代并暗喻着物质世界的万物和精神世界的万象。同是夜路风景主题的油画作品，《夜路》、《夜》却极为超现实。画面上，路两边的植物茎干和枝条不仅密集如墙，而且还像藤蔓一般几乎爬满、遮盖了整个夜空。

　　唐华伟油画《景致》、《余辉》、《云中月6-3》和《幽境》以精神植物为表现主题，在画面上率性地构建了一个又一个超现实的植物金字塔。作品《景致》中，堆放式的植物形象拥挤密集，几乎占满整个画面，让人想起马格利特所画的挤满一个房间的大苹果形象。《余辉》、《云中月6-3》中金字塔造型，则是由精神植物相互缠绕、簇拥、集聚而成。疯狂扭曲、纠缠的植物群构成一种混乱无序的突兀景观，极具压迫感和紧张感。唐华伟富于表现力的线条不仅塑造了无数植物盘根错节、争先恐后的攒动感，而且让植物群形象在画面上产生一种奇妙的整体上升感。由此，艺术家直呈了一种复杂的人性叙事，同时也表达了意识与潜意识、理性与非理性纠缠不清的一种内在心理现实。

　　在油画《秋的像》之中，唐华伟刻意把主观臆造的“人造”植物当作画面表现的主体，不再借用风景画题材。从打造“人造风景”转而塑造自己的“人造物”，艺术家在创作实践中持续推进着针对自身形式语言的追究和精进。《秋的像》中的图景貌似农家秋收后自然铺放在大地上的庄稼，其实质却是“人造”植物单一物种极具统治感和扩张欲的一种漫无边际的覆盖和遮蔽。《青纱帐》系列中的植物扭曲疯长，全然脱离北方高粱的原型而成为狂放、张扬的网状线条。作品《秋的像》、《青纱帐》标题所提示的田园牧歌和古典诗性，则被一种超强的“人造”生命体无限繁殖、扩张的冲击力悄无声息地取代。在《纠结的网》、《温度》、《呼吸》系列、《暮》等作品中，唐华伟把“人造”植物围聚为一个网状的人工意象。昭然若揭地凸显出一种超现实的视觉奇观。这些“人造”植物在画中似乎成为一种有机体，跟天地自然的气息相关联。而且，每根植物的茎干和枝条似乎都带有自己的情绪，拥有自主的呼吸。它们似乎都在微微膨胀、收缩、起伏、痉挛、颤动。作品《纠结的网》中，每根”人造”植物似乎都在相互吸附、穿插。彼此编织、聚合成一种不规则的网状结构，犹如一种未知的外星球生命。

　　唐华伟的油画画幅虽大，但他总能在画面上营造出一种恢弘的宇宙格局和沉淀一切的精神气质，藉此统摄画面所有的喧哗与骚动。画面上，唐华伟的线条语言干净而洗练。每根精神植物都刻划得具体而微、活灵活现。其实，植物形象之律动感和生命感的呈现，主要得益于艺术家对线条语言的重构。唐华伟的线条几乎都是用画刀从厚厚的数个色层中刮削、发掘而来的。他的用刀轨迹流畅、灵动且充满表现力。刀锋所至，搅合了油画表面的预敷色层和潜伏在底层的各种色彩，披露出色层内在的丰富而混合的底色。艺术家的线条则随刀痕之形轻盈而走、生动而现。刮痕及其边线的正负凹凸感形成了植物茎干与枝条的鲜明轮廓。唐华伟的画面“刀功”是一种书写性和行动性的有效结合与平衡，深具中国传统书法的韵味。他自幼长期习练书法，深谙中国传统文化中的线条美学和笔墨趣味。故而，他虽使用油画媒介的画刀、画笔，却常常表现出中国书画文化渊源上的笔笔相生理念。站在唐华伟油画前，观者的目光往往会自然而然地顺着画面线条的运行轨迹而移动，几乎可以追溯、回放艺术家创作绘画时的各种瞬间原态。唐华伟手执画刀，在巨大画布上不断上下舞动，运行出各种轨迹。时而起伏回转，时而曲折来往，时而重复叠加。然而，他在画布上的每一次挥刀划动都极有章法，既要考虑与上一次划动轨迹的关联，又要为下一步动作留有余地。创作过程中，艺术家书写性的“刀功”常常表现为针对感性经验的一种自我把控，力求有放有收、有张有弛，直至得到纯粹的线条表现。在唐华伟画面上，看似随心所欲、自由回转的手工刀痕，却是艺术家秉持“无常形而有常理”观念并付诸实践的结果，从中呈现的是一种温绵、柔韧的心性和一种克制、合度的心态。唐华伟作画时的心性和心态，蕴含的正是从容、优雅和刚柔相济的儒家文化气质。

　　唐华伟的线条表现还体现在《彼岸风景》系列油画之中。作品中的线条表现不再拘泥于状物和拟物，而是几乎脱离现实原型，进入时而粗犷、时而细腻的自由书写的状态。刮刀轨迹所构成的线条成为画面主角，修长、伸展的纵向线条与少数痉挛的横向线条相互交集、纠结，形成戏剧性的画面关联。藉此，唐华伟以作品承载自身的主观意志，试图用自身的感觉来理解人的内在宇宙与和天地宇宙的对应关系。

　　在《彼岸风景》系列中，油画《彼岸风景5-27》却是唐华伟一幅脱离现实形象而表现抽象思维的独特作品。画面上简约、随性而具有游戏感的书写性线条，可以显而易见地见证艺术家创作时的一种信马由缰、自我释放的心态。他在非具象与抽象之间的夹缝中探索、追究自身形式语言的可塑性空间，同时饶有兴致地玩味了中国文人画传统中“逸笔草草” 的美学精神。他不但在作品中营造出一种虚实相间的画面秩序，而且还在不经意间体现出一种时间性的观念。《彼岸风景5-27》中，线条只是线条本身，简洁而独立，不再象形，也不再是现实世界、现实事物的镜像。线条在画面上表现出抽象性的美感，构成一种绘画性自身的逻辑自洽。多个相对垂直的线条甚至在画面上拉伸出一定的距离感、跨度感。这些画刀刮痕所塑造的修长线条，由下而上、由外及内，既表现出一种上升、聚气的运动方向，又展现出一种生动的、极具时间跨度感的运动轨迹。绘画的时间性，是唐华伟在画面实验中不断观想、见证和反思的对象，也是他超越镜像现实与具像美学、超越二维与三维之形式思维惯性的一种精神诉求。

　　唐华伟是一个时间的沉思者。他敬畏时间，还把绘画当作是一种拓印时间、保存时间的艺术。他的水彩作品《时光的拓片》系列的画面，几乎如实地呈现了水彩颜料在纸上点滴、晕染出多层痕迹的过程。画面色彩透明、淡泊、朴素，各种颜色先后落纸的顺序几乎都跃然纸上，有迹可循，从中充分显示了一种时间性的表述。艺术家试图用有形、有色彩的水来拓印无形的时间。故而，《时光的拓片》系列中非具象的水彩痕迹，就是一种把时间视为隐喻的艺术语言。

　　而在唐华伟油画《曦微》中，密集的线条却更为集中地呈现了人性与时间的关系。所有的线条个体都可以代表一种共时状态下的时间线索。但每根线条都在几乎混乱无序的线条巨阵中穿插、纠缠、迷失，或有始无终，或无始无终。画作《曦微》人为地传达了一种非线性的时间观念，也给观者观想作品带来一种非常态的、甚至反常的时间体验。然而在《曦微》画面上，有头绪的线索比起无头绪的线索，似乎更能印证人性在时间中的脆弱。藉此，艺术家试图传达给观者一种源自内心感应的时间敬畏。纵观唐华伟的具象表现主义油画，不难发现，无论是《呼吸》系列与《云中月》系列中植物线条的攒动感，还是《仰望夜空》中星星的下坠轨迹，无不彰显、传达并保存着一种时间存在的感性体验。面对绘画表现中的时间性焦虑，唐华伟画刀的每一次落和收，都不得不与自身的心理时间相应对、相关联，既力求从容和闲定，又讲究火候拿捏得当。在最近的创作中，艺术家越来越倾向于把画面的线条运动表现为定格、凝固时间流逝轨迹的一种形式，从而体现对时间存在的证悟。

　　线条在手，入木三分。线条出手，行云流水。唐华伟油画中的线条表现，追求的是重新激活并转换中国传统书写性文化范式的一种形式语言。全球化语境下，唐华伟仍一如既往地关注着精神生产的形式语言创新。他仍把绘画视为当代的一种日趋异质化的个人精神生产方式。唐华伟并不讳言自身所受益的中西合璧的传统精神资源，也惯常在中西方不同文明传统的线索中探寻颠覆和创新的逻辑关系。然而，唐华伟当下更重视的是打造一种具有自身精神文化主体性的形式语言贡献，并使之经得起中西方双重文化语境的检验。为此，他潜心于观想并体悟日常生活方方面面中的传统审美渊源，同时执着于观想并反思人性化的精神存在及其所传承、蕴含的传统基因和文脉。在唐华伟观想、体悟、反思及其不断循环往复的艺术实践中，他的油画语言形式日臻练达和圆融，显示出一个活在当下的中国艺术家刷新自身精神存在的无限可能。

 

Observation and Contemplation on Spirit: Tang Huawei’s Painting 

What makes human a human is the existence of thinking and spirit. Human existence is the spiritual existence, and human spirit is a kind of metaphysical existence beyond time and space. Spirit exists intangibly, but reality exists tangibly. To Tang Huawei-the artist, it is the art that turns the intangible spirit into tangible and meaningful forms in real life. Art is an important form of human spirit, since it formalizes human spirit into a reality touchable, i.e. language reality and behavioral reality. All realities in art language and art behavior are all realities of human spirit.

In Tang Huawei’s paintings, spirit is placed at the equally important position as form. Human always has the internal spirit. The way out for spirit is to externalize in certain form, this or that. But human spirit cannot be expressed without a form. Form is an intangible expression and expansion of spirit in real life, while spirit is a metaphysical elevation and transcending of form. One of Tang Huawei’s tireless pursuits is line expression. On canvas, his painting knife winds like both dragon and snake, to create numerous dynamic, unbounded, forceful and vigorous lines. Although simulating the natural growth and extension of plants, those lines often break through the images depicted, and become free and willful writing and expression.

In recent years, Tang Huawei always intends to focus on a single subject matter and develop it to perfection. He still likes to select landscape subject and figurative expression, but realistic natural landscape like mirror image can be hardly seen in his oil paintings finished between 2013 and 2014. Reviewing the works in this period, spreading branches of an unknown plant would flood into your vision, but each series has its own keynote, supporting each other to express the artist’s intention. Actually, Tang Huawei has been working on the “new subjective” painting, what he depicts is the subjective artificial landscape deep from his inner heart, and the unknown plant like either vine or green curtain is also a subjective artificial existence created by the artist. They are the externalized demonstrations of the artist’s secret, complex and indescribable spiritual existence. They are tangible as a kind of specious form of plant. Actually the form is only a kind of formalized carrier and linguistic framework, carrying and defining the spirit, thinking and concept the artist has endowed.

They are in fact exactly plant of spirit, growing with the artist’s spirit. Although the artificial spiritual plant is a visualized object implying the artist’s spirit, thinking and concept, it would experience self-development, expansion and even alienation in public context, and become a kind of “organic” symbol of formal language beyond the control of artist’s subjective will. In terms of art history, any artistic schema and image entering into the circulation process, including artist’s highly individualized and secret “artificial things,” are all resources of public spiritual culture. Whether the audience viewed them differently, or misunderstanding occurred frequently? The answer could be unimaginable to artist.

Before Tang Huawei’s Midsummer Night, the audience would first feel a seemingly formulaic mimesis for artistic reproduction. The style of figurative narration, the layout of golden-sectioned landscape, the focus perspective image of road and the vanishing point in the end, everything seems regular and normal. The painting reminds the audience of his introduction of Kiefer’s aesthetics, but distinguishes with the densely-populated “artificial” plants standing along the road as green forest. However, only after observation or review, the audience could feel the well-coordinated internal logics of them, and even grasp the continuous spread of each plant on both sides of the road. Tang Huawei’s painting centers on the vanishing point of the road, and shoots out four obvious or ambiguous straight lines, cutting the painting into four triangular segments—the road, evening sky, and plants on both sides. He controls and handles the whole painting with fundamental visual rules for dot, line and plane. The images take very neat and tidy order, demonstrating the artist’s rationality in landscaping. Each rampant and forceful “artificial” plant is of extremely subjective and emotional characteristics of spirit. Just like growing up from the artist’s heart, they vividly conveyed the artist’s inner flurry. The densely-populated interwoven spiritual plants seemed metaphorize the artist’s throbbing heart and divergent thinking. Some plants’ tops were completely blackened, like a kind of dark matter blending into the boundless dark night. The whole painting is dominated by black and dark colors, but free from any decadent and negative attitude, instead it delivers the sense of hope and salvation.

Tang Huawei’s oil paintings finished in 2014 basically appear as pure and simple spiritual landscape. Such spiritual landscape perfectly depicts the artist’s mental reality with strong individualized characteristics. In his paintings, the dense and overlapping unknown plants madly grow and spread, filling the whole scene with the wild passion and irrational vigor arisen from the primitive life. The unknown plants spread eternally and everywhere in Tang Huawei’s oil paintings, and thus become his schematic symbol. Among all the paintings in 2014, the Midsummer Night and Under the Moonlight are the key to understand and interpret all of his “artificial” plants, since they plat the significant role in image processing and conversion of image nature. In the traditional landscapes of Midsummer Night and Under the Moonlight, the plants are given double meanings of sorghum (or liana) in objective reality and spiritual symbol in subjective spiritual world. In other paintings, they are converted into undoubted spiritual plants as the analogy and carrier of Tang Huawei’s subjective world, representing and symbolizing all existences in material and spiritual world. Also falling in the category of depicting the scene of night, the Night Road and the Night appear surrealistic. In the two paintings, the stems, branches and twigs of plants along the road climb all over the wall and cover up almost the whole night sky.

Tang Huawei’s Scenery, Afterglow, Moon in Clouds 6-3 and Tranquil Environment are all depicting the spiritual plants, and build surrealistic pyramids of plants unruly one after another. In Scenery, the plants pile up crowdedly and cover up the whole frame, reminding the audience of Magritte’s big apples packing up a whole room. The pyramids in the Afterglow and Moon in Cloud 6-3 constitute the interwoven, crowded and gathered spiritual plants. The madly twisted and tangled plants create constitute the chaotic, abrupt landscape, delivering a sense of depression and tension. With the lines full of expressive power, Tang Huawei not only expressed the surging sense of the entangled plants, but also the magic rising sense of the plant community. Thus the artist directly presented a complicated humanistic narration, and expressed a struggling mentality of consciousness and sub-consciousness, rationality and irrationality.

In the oil painting Image of Autumn, Tang Huawei intentionally focused on the fabricated “artificial” plant as the main body, and no longer borrowed the subject matter of landscape. From depicting “artificial landscape” to shaping his own “artificiality,” the artist keeps proceeding with his exploitation and refinement of his formal language in creation. The view in the Image of Autumn looks like crops naturally putting on the ground after harvest, but actually, it depicts the boundless coverage with a strong sense of domination and expansion generated by a single species—“artificial” plant; while the plants in the Green Curtain Series spread madly in a twisted manner and totally go beyond the image of sorghum in North China into wild and rampant network. The atmosphere of idyllic pastoral and classical poetry implied in the titles of the Image of Autumn and Green Curtain is quietly and secretly removed by the limitlessly amplifying and proliferating impact created by the super strong “artificial” lives. In the Intertwined Net, Temperature, Breath Series and Dusk, Tang Huawei gathered the “artificial” plants together and created the man-made image of a network, highlighting a surrealistic visual wonder. Those “artificial” plants seemingly have become a kind of organism, breathing together with the sky, the earth and the nature. In addition, the stem, twig and branch of each plant seem to have their own emotion and independent breath, as if they are slightly expanding, shrinking, rising, falling, cramping and vibrating. In the Intertwined Net, all “artificial” plants are seemingly attaching to and going across each other, and thus weaving and producing an irregular network, as the unknown alien life.

Although big in size, Tang Huawei’s oil paintings are always endowed with the magnificent universal outlook and the thoroughly inclusive spirit, with which all the sound and fury are brought under control. In the painting, Tang Huawei’s line language appears clean, neat and precise. Each spiritual plant is depicted specifically and vividly. In fact, the sense of rhythm and life of all plant images is attributed to the artist’s restructuring of line language. Tang Huawei developed almost all the lines by scraping and cutting off the thick overlapped paint layers. The knife trail is smooth, flexible and full of expressive power. Where the knife goes, the pre-laid paint color on the surface and colors lying below are revealed, showing the true ground with rich and mixed colors. The lines are produced as the knife travels through the canvas smoothly and vividly. The scratch and the uneven sideline outline the stem and branch of plant. Tang Huawei’s knife cutting skill effectively combines and balances the writing and action, and absorbs the charm of traditional Chinese calligraphy. He once practiced calligraphy at very young age, and understands the line and ink aesthetics in traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, although using painting brush and knife—the medium of oil painting, he often expresses the concept of inter-promoting relation between lines, which was established in the history of Chinese calligraphy and painting culture. In front of Tang Huawei’s oil painting, the audience’s eyes often moved naturally with the lines, by which they could almost track down and play back the artist’s state in creation: Tang Huawei, with the painting knife in hand, drew up and down on the huge canvas, and left different trails, here and there, to and fro, one after another. However, each cutting is well-organized, considering the connection with the previous stroke, while leaving the margin for the next one. In creation, the artist’s “cutting skill” is often perfectly shown as the free self-control over emotional experience, in a sometimes tight sometimes loose way, until the lines are expressed purely and ideally. In those paintings, the seemingly free and random cutting is the result of artist’s concept of “no constant form but with constant thinking” and the practice of the concept, with which the mild but tough character, and the restrained but moderate mentality are demonstrated. Such character and mentality in creation are just the unhurried, graceful, soft and hard nature of Confucian culture.

Tang Huawei’s special line expression is also adopted in the oil painting Sceneries on the Other Side Series. In the series, the line expression is no longer limited to shape or simulate objects, but almost goes beyond the prototype in reality, and into the sometimes unrestrained and sometimes exquisite, free writing. The lines produced by scraper became the leading role in the painting. The long, thin and longitudinally spreading lines and a small proportion of twisting transverse lines gathered and crossed each other, creating the dramatic connection with the whole painting. Therefore, Tang Huawei assumed the artwork to demonstrate his subjective will, and tried to comprehend the corresponding relationship between human’s micro universe and the heaven, the earth and the macro universe.

In the Sceneries on the Other Side Series, the 5-27 is in fact a unique work going beyond realistic image but expressing abstract thinking. The simple, freehand and seemingly playful depicting lines in the painting clearly demonstrate the artist’s completely relaxed and self-released mentality in creation. Between the non-figurative and abstract description, he explores and develops the plastic space of his own formal language, and practices the aesthetic spirit of “drawing roughly” advocated by the tradition of Chinese literati painting with great interest. He not only developed the order between virtuality and reality, but also expressed the concept of timing unintentionally. In 5-27, lines only represent lines, simple and independent, neither being pictographic, nor standing as the mirror of real world and things. Lines in painting show the abstract beauty, and constitute the logic of painting itself. Many relatively vertical lines even stretch certain sense of distance and span. The long and thin lines drawn by the scraper, or knife run from bottom to top, from outside to inside, showing not only the rising trend, but also the movement in time span. The timeliness of painting is also a subject being observed, contemplated and witnessed in Tang Huawei’s experiment, and the spiritual appeal beyond mirroring realism and figurative aesthetics, two- and three-dimensional conventional thinking.

Tang Huawei is a thinker of timeliness. He reveres time and considers painting as an art enabling rubbing and saving time. His watercolor Rubbing of Time Series shows almost the whole process of dripping and rendering of water colors on paper. The tone of painting is transparent, plain and simple, with the order of using different colors being distinguished on paper, highlighting sufficiently the expression of timeliness. The artist was trying to depict the intangible time with tangible water, so the non-figurative trails of watercolor in the Rubbing of Time Series is the art language metaphorizing time.

In Tang Huawei’s oil painting Dawn, the densely populated lines demonstrate the relationship between human nature and time in a more centralized manner. Each line represents a time line at the synchronic state, but each line also runs, intertwines and loses in the labyrinth of chaotic lines, with start but no end, or without both start and end. Dawn artificially conveys the concept of non-linear time, and brings the non-normal, even abnormal experience to the audience in watching. In the painting, however, the linear lines seem better verify the vulnerability of human nature in time, in comparison with the non-linear lines. With the painting, the artist is trying to tell the audience his reverence for time from his heart. Looking through Tang Huawei’s figurative expressionistic oil paintings, it can be easily discovered that, no matter being the dense lines in depicting plants in the Breath Series and the Moon in Clouds Series, or being the falling trails of stars in the Looking Up Into the Night Sky, everything highlights, conveys and keeps the emotional experience of time. In front of the anxiety towards the timeliness in painting, Tang Huawei needs to properly handle each scratching and withdrawal, response and association to his psychological time, so as to maintain his unhurried and relaxed manner in creation. In the latest creation, the artist increasingly tends to express line movement in the form of fixed, frozen time track, in order to evidence the existence of time.

When lines are drawn, the strength can go into wood by three centimeters; and when lines are finished, they run on the canvas like stream water. In the line expression, Tang Huawei seeks for the language of form to reinvigorate and transform traditional Chinese form of writing culture. In the globalized context, Tang always pays attention to the innovation of formal language of spiritual production, and considers painting as a contemporary production of individual spirit which tends to heterogenize. Tang never denied the traditional spiritual resource combining the east and the west which he benefits from, and always seeks to break through and innovate in logical relationship by eastern and western civilization tradition. However, Tang emphasizes more on creating a kind of formal language with its own subjective spiritual culture, and empowering it to stand right up to the test of the cultural context combining the east and the west. For this purpose, he has been observing and thinking over the origin of traditional aesthetics in daily life, as well as humanized spiritual existence, traditional gene and cultural origin it carried and contained. In his artistic practices filled with repeated observation, contemplation and reflection, Tang’s form of language became increasingly experienced and harmonious, showing the infinite possibility of the contemporary Chinese artist to refresh his/her own spiritual existence.

 Gu Zhenqing

Curator, Art Critics and Theorist