Free and
Unfettered: On Lu Peng¡¦s Works
By Zhang Zhaohui
Unfettered freedom is a state of mind that is often referred
to in traditional Chinese culture. The concept originated from the first
chapter of the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, entitled Free and Unfettered Wandering. The text describes a giant fish
named Kun that transforms into a
giant bird called Peng. When Peng journeys to the Southern Ocean, its
wings flap over the water for three thousand leagues [li]. Then it ascends on a whirlwind for another ninety thousand leagues. These metaphors were used to
describe unbounded openness of thought and imagination ¡V an ideal spiritual
state that many Chinese intellectuals aspire to. It is also what Lu
Peng has been trying to explore and express through his artwork for the past
decade.
The theme of unfettered freedom and wandering at will runs
through all of Lu Peng¡¦s works, as is evident from his earlier
series, Three Travel-weary Loafers
and Through the Wall; to the
later works from A
Fighting World of Female Beauty, as well as the recent Free and Unfettered series. A myriad
of images and scenes are used freely to depict layer upon layer of complex
social phenomena and bewildering culturo-psychological schemata, all of which
reflects his thirty-years of life experience. For example,
Three Travel-weary Loafers captures
his childhood fascination with traditional Chinese martial art stories; Through the Wall expresses his youthful
yearning for freedom and rebellion against social constraints; and A Fighting World of Female Beauty portrays
disillusionment with one¡¦s shattered ideals and the ensuing pursuit of desires.
The latest Free and Unfettered series,
however, conveys the artist¡¦s musing on the value
of culture and life in his forties. Interestingly, these
clear-cut stages of development run parallel to the psychological trajectory of
Chinese people born in the sixties.
Lu Peng has painstakingly studied, researched and
collated traditional Chinese paintings, especially the contouring, colouring
and composition of meticulous works. He has also produced a large number of
outline drawings. These have helped him to grasp the characteristics of shapes
and forms, as well as the general aesthetic of traditional painting. Later, as
it turns out, this earlier training has enabled him to borrow and appropriate
traditional patterns and images and use them in his own works with skill and
proficiency. Unlike most painters, he takes great interest in Tibetan Tanka painting. Line drawing is used
profusely in Tanka painting, but in a
different way from the meticulous painting of the Han people. The former puts emphasis on the painter¡¦s craftsmanship
and religious piety, and the time and energy dedicated to the production of the
painting. In contrast, the latter values the flavour and quality of lines. Lu
Peng adopts and embraces all of these qualities. As a result, his works
demonstrate technical richness and complexity through layering, spanning a
diverse range of mediums including ink on paper, or acrylic or oil on canvas.
We see in his art techniques and craftsmanship that are irreplaceable. He once
said, ¡§Unlike those artistic geniuses who rely on sparks of inspiration, I see
painting as a slow and mellow process of self-training and self-perfecting.¡¨[i]
He is, for sure, only one of many Chinese artists who uses Chinese symbols in
their work. However, instead of producing a uniform or clichéd interpretation
of these symbols, he looks for a method of his own. And with this method, he is
able to convey his own perception and ideas about contemporary society with
clarity and precision.
Lu Peng grew up in Beijing ¡V a city that despite 20
years of charging forward towards modernity and cosmopolitanism has remained
steeped in history and ancient culture. He is therefore naturally influenced by
tradition. During this drastic social transformation he has invoked recurrent
debates about traditional values and cultural identity. Living in such an
environment, it is only natural that Lu Peng would have some feelings and ideas
on the issue. In fact in the past thirty or forty years, Beijing has become not
only the melting pot of a range of Chinese social problems, but also the focus
of global attention. It seems to pull the conflicts between East and West
centripetally toward itself and has become a battleground between modernity and
tradition. As a result, artists who grow up in Beijing tend to have a deep
relationship with traditional Chinese culture, as well as a subtle and accurate
understanding of everyday political life. Both of these can be seen clearly in
Lu Peng¡¦s art.
Art critic Li Xianting once coined the term ¡¥cultural
fragments¡¦ when writing about Lu Peng¡¦s works. ¡§Lu Peng has been deeply affected by traditional drama, martial arts
fiction, electronic games, and Hollywood films. Thus, these elements have
become the main thread of his works. His works enable us to process the confused state of today's culture
and comprehend it in terms of adventure stories - painting with absurd humor
and a sense of violence.¡¨[ii] Sensitive and precise Li¡¦s critique may be, but it still fails to
unravel the deep message that the artist wishes to convey buried under the
piles of cultural fragments.
What
the artist has done is more than piling unselectively layers and layers of
random and unconnected cultural fragments onto his paintings. The visual
symbols that represent the ¡¥cultural fragments¡¦ are closely related to
contemporary society, politics and cultural life. They even, to a large extent,
constitute the visual culture of our society today. For example, the painted
masks of characters from the Peking opera that regularly pop out from Lu¡¦s pictures are cultural symbols with a political connotation. In the
political atmosphere of China, cultural symbols are seen as a stronghold
against infiltration by Western civilization.
Furthermore,
young males in green or red and naked females also feature importantly in Lu
Peng¡¦s paintings. First of all, the juxtaposition and contrast between Cultural
Revolution soldiers¡¦ green with red guards¡¦ red invokes the image of a public
memory - Mao appearing on the Tiananmen Square tower in green army uniform and
red armband at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Despite the old-fashioned
clothing worn by the people in his paintings, the contrast between green and red
refers directly to the social present of a state run by the military. Another
important character in his paintings is the half-naked woman. Her body oozes
the odour of desire. Her expression looks either shocked or dazed. She indulges
herself in the caress and intimacy ¡V partly resisting the ravage of being
violated, and partly expecting the pleasure of arousal. In the artist¡¦s eye,
she represents the psyche of some modern-day Chinese women. Handcuffed by both
the angst of contemporary life and the constraints of traditional ideology,
today¡¦s Chinese women find collected aplomb and shelter hard to come by. To
some women, self-respect and self-love has become an unaffordable luxury.
In contrast to the
Fighting World of Female Beauty series, works in the Free and Unfettered series all contain images of traditional
landscape painting. The mystical Orient is portrayed by the signature
combination of soaring mountains interspersed by misty clouds and cascading
waterfalls, with shimmers reflected from the rippling waters at the foot of the
waterfall. These dreamy scenes are painted in grey and create a texture
somewhat like wall paint. Although the traditional format is retained in these
paintings, they are devoid of traditional content. This kind of treatment and
attitude toward traditional culture is widespread in China¡¦s everyday scenes.
Sculptures in the form of miniature landscape in the streets, and the adoption
of traditional rooftop motifs on Beijing¡¦s many public buildings are both good
examples. This kind of cheap and cheerful adoption of traditional cultural
symbols exposes people¡¦s lack of confidence when it comes to their own cultural
tradition. The artist feels powerless in this general social atmosphere. But
his cultural conscience as an intellectual motivates him to reveal its
absurdity and pettiness nonetheless.
Other symbols that
often appear in his paintings include galloping horses, flying cranes,
gonfalons, armor, maps, and ancient books and texts, etc. These visual symbols
are intermingled with and wrapped around by dancing and writhing human bodies.
The result? A concoction of disarrayed and entangled elements, somewhat like a
pile of bric-a-brac spiraling up into a tornado. This, in itself, is a powerful
and distinct visual metaphor. In the past century or more, the corrupt Chinese
feudal system was under continuous attack from Western civilization and
gradually lost its footing. Lu Peng¡¦s paintings portray people
stuck in cultural interstices ¡V those who have lost touch with
their own cultural base yet fail to identify with the contemporary alternative.
Therefore the tones of the picture are edgy, the people dismayed and
frightened, the symbols and images intertwined and entangled. Despite all of
that, some people refuse to sink into dejection, nor will they go with the
muddy flow. Instead, some of them immigrate overseas, some find solace in
religion, while others adopt Zhuangzi¡¦s philosophy of unbounded ease and
freedom; observing China¡¦s social vicissitudes with a cool eye. Lu
Peng belongs to the last category. He observes and
records the era and its accompanying culturo-psychological schemata as an
outsider with the attitude of a free and unfettered wanderer.
In many respects, Lu Peng does not fit in with the
stereotype we have of artists. He is thorough but relaxed, disciplined but
easy-going. He feels a lot more like a teacher or a doctor. But he is an artist
after all, and a brilliant one too. He is also a very genuine person. Thus
unfortunately in the face of moral obligations, he still finds it nearly
impossible to be free and unfettered, like a wanderer and an onlooker.
Zhang
Zhaohui
Noted art
critic and director of Joey Art Gallery, Beijing