It was two years ago that I saw Mr. He’s painting exhibition, and it was unforgetable. For many times, I want to write something for his paintings. Everytime, however, I don’t know what to write. Whenever I was fascinated by the arts, I’m unable to express even a word.
His paintings are beyond verbal description, thus I have to ask myself conversely: what in his paintings had touched me so deeply?
Perhaps the uniqueness, personality and creativity in his paintings make the appreciation of his paintings like a spirit traveling.
However, is uniqueness always good? Aren’t there so many unique but boring works? Therefore, what has moved me is the fineness of his paintings, and they are of good quality. His paintings look as if they were drawn in random, some are even seemingly like scrawling. Nevertheless, the form, the ink, the color, the layout and the structure of a painting are so well connected that even a part cannot be changed. It is the essential quintessence of Chinese traditional wash painting to be well controlled through the ostensible randomness, a artist is sensitive in constructing a well-formed picture by seemingly doodling like to write a good prose. The paintings of Mr. He have gone far away from the drawing standard and modeling formula of Chinese traditional calligraphy while retain the essentials. He must have scrapped lots of paintings to prepare for the exhibition.
It is unavoidable even for famous painters that painting at random loses control over a painting while painting with scrupulousness makes a painting restrained. Su Shi said that extending creativity beyond the rules and reaching the profound theory beyond the boldness is an examination to wisdom, knowledge, ability, skill and genius of an artist. This standard is also an endless road in front of Mr. He.
Is it good to seek control in a freely way? In the painting world this is merely regarded as the technique even routines. Can’t works with perfect routines but without spiritual content be seen everywhere? The ancient precept concerning "Using skills as the access to truth" definitely has its own meaning. Painting at random is to abandon oneself to Bohemianism and liberate the spirit so as to disclose the true nature of life. It is impossible to attain liberty by overcautious way. Neither is it possible to enter the state of perfection before being infatuated With the crisscross of freely brushing and scratching, the nonexistent sprout, the redundant disappear, the rigid become lively and the corrupt turn magical. This process of "on the way" is the real fascination of the paintings. During painting, the nature can be traced on the paper, the truth can be disclosed, and the voice of the soul can sound with the sound of nature. Only this is the immortal classical soul in the paintings.
It can be seen from the works that Mr. He regards every piece of his paintings as a process to pursue the origin and essence with a kind of quasi-religious selflessness and piousness, which make his paintings break away from the fixed rules and skills with creativity.
His paintings include the style of mountains-and-waters painting and the flower-and-bird painting, and most are figure painting. At the first glance, it is easy to consider his figure-paintings are like the city-wash-painting which describe young girls, idle women, ordinary people and trifling matters, however, his paintings are totally different from the city-wash-painting. The unusual proportion (for instance <Kuxiang>) and the combination of the surrealism figure (for instance <Kuku>) cast a layer of metaphor and philosophical mist over his paintings. Most of images in his paintings are neutral females without personality or feeling. The figures seem like in a meditation without concentration, watching without seeing and listening without hearing. From one point they are life garden while from another side they are ghost impasses. With mortal factors as well as Bodhisattva and Goddess factors, the figure is concrete as well as abstract. These characteristics make the figures in his paintings become some symbol conveyor which express super-empirical spirit by experience and express metaphysical spirit by images of young girls and idle women.
The super-empirical spirit of Mr. He blends the above worldly concentration of the east as well as the ultimate concern of the west. On the one hand, the detailed inquiry to life and death can be sensed from < The Happy Field> while on the other hand, the doubt to the ultimate aim can be found from <Beyond the Universe>. Meanwhile, the examination to existence is able to be felt from <The Ultimate Home>. However, the struggling, pain, original sin, and tragedy are meaningless. Everything has been converted into a stretch of vapor by the scenery made of “free-natural-spirit and overwhelming vigor”. Everything has been melt into bright, clean and void redemption by leisurely and magnanimous modeling, clean and gentle ink-wielding and leisurely and simple-elegant hue. Only deep in a spiritual world can the loneliness and slight melancholy of the artist be felt.
Zong Baihua had raised the similar ideal in the 1940s that “it is necessary to obtain both the exceedingly sentimental of Qu Yuan and the vacant-Sensitive of Chuang Tzu.” This is exactly He Weiming’s spiritual pursuit and the direction of effort.
