[Interview] Shen chen×Jan Leaming：Quiet Quest Realism To Abstraction（2009）

Jan: Describe the transition from figurative to non-figurative painting.

Shen: After I graduated from college in 1982, I had been painting realistically for more than ten years and I was not quite satisfied with my works. During that period of time, there was a group of artists named “在野” (a political party which is not in office). Those artists specialized indifferent area, literature, fine art, music. We got together frequently to discuss modern art and each one of us tried to experiment in his own area. Before that time, I saw many works by Ba Da Shan Ren. In 1974, his blank spaces and compositions influenced me a lot. In 1978, when I was involved in organizing works for the Wild Rose exhibition, I saw Pollock’s work for first time. The free spirit and tension of lines and dots in his works made me experience the beauty of Chinese traditional painting for reasons I do not understand. After that, I saw an exhibition of German abstraction expressionism at the National Art Museum, in addition to several other abstract shows and catalogs. I started to sense “express format”, emphasis subjective opinion in works, but I was still covered by the shadow of Impressionism.

From Pollock to Klein, I noticed the importance of format. De Kooning’s wildness and Motherwell’s black and white compositions made me rethink the meaning of calligraphy. I started to combine Chinese literature painting and calligraphy with western abstraction. I think format and skill is enough to express and could be painting itself. But format and skill in literature painting and calligraphy was perfect. I had a strong desire to try abstract because of my interest and self-consciousness, but my knowledge of abstraction was limited, my desire didn’t have a clear destination. Desire was on the verge of breaking out. Since the end of 1982, I tried abstract ink painting. I wrote calligraphy without recognizable characters - deconstructed calligraphy; I painted paintings without an image. Oil pigment and water color were replaced by ink; canvas was replaced by rice paper, oil brush was replaced by Chinese brush; painting on the easel was replaced by “painting on the floor”. From then, I started my life as an abstract painter. In 1984, I had my first abstraction show in China Journalist Society.

Jan: How long did it take?

Shen: Most early works cannot be considered a real art. I threw many of them away after they were finished. The process was actually interesting; desire and disappointment intertwined throughout the process. But I didn’t have a clear “picture” in my mind, and I needed to be more familiar with materials and tools. The transition lasted for one year. But two years later, my abstract work had matured.

Jan: Describe the setbacks and breakthroughs.

Shen: What does setback really mean? Paint realism again? I never did that on purpose, except sometimes I had to lead a team to sketch outside, when I worked at a theater in 1983. I had a setback set finding a format. My early works changed a lot, because I was doing experiment. Sometimes I did same thing over and over again, then new elements interrupted, and sometimes I turned back to the original idea later. After 1989, I did mixed media works, and I created some ink works in 1991 for an exhibition in Japan. That was a special case, and I do not see it as a setback in my career. I had several breakthroughs in different stages.

First, ink stage: my earliest works were about calligraphy, rough style. I paid a lot of attention to composition and rhythm, left big blank spaces on the paper. I called this the deconstructed calligraphy stage. The breakthrough was finding personal style. I used ink, and sometimes a little water color.

Jan: Describe the change in the way you conceive the paintings in your mind.

Shen: This question is too complicated. I use different creative processes in every stage or every works, even in one work. Sometimes the process changes by some spontaneous idea or accident. If a painting is almost clear in my mind, and I am interrupted by a new idea, the whole picture may be changed. Sometimes, I plan to paint a black painting, but during the process, a visual effect I didn’t expect emerges. In that case I might make it into a gray work. Here is another situation: I plan to paint a single panel painting, but I find out that I want to express more than I can on a single panel; I will add two more panels to make it a triptych. Sometimes in the middle of a work, I realize that I cannot achieve what I had intended. Then I change my plan. So there are no consistent procedures when I paint.

Jan: In a physiological sense do you like to paint this way? Describe the pleasure and the evolution of that pleasure in the way you paint now.

Shen: I paint because I like to. I enjoy the pleasure of painting, but it is hard to express in words, and I don’t feel I can express it clearly. When I was young, I made big movements while painting, especially when making large paintings. Wearing grass shoes, I jumped around holding a big brush full of ink. I poured my emotions through the brush, leaving half of the painting done and saving half for a surprise in my mind. After I finished one painting, I feel excited and relaxed because I had vented my emotions totally. As time went on, I painted more and more carefully, and the paintings increased in size. I spent more time on each one of them. Increased labor forced me to be patient instead of impulsive.

Every time I finished painting, my heart was purified. As I was moving brush on canvas, I felt my body evaporate in the air. It was as though I was intoxicated with the subtle and lasting pleasurable feeling flowing through my arm and brush. It was like the pleasure of being “reborn”; all distracting thoughts vanished.

Jan: Where do you find inspiration?

Shen: Life and experience.Sources of inspiration exist everywhere. A sentence, the color of the sky after a thunderstorm, a spontaneous idea that comes up during the painting process...all came from daily life. Painting is the way of my life; one unexpected visual experience could change my view. For example, when I painted Untitled Work No. 5003-05, I couldn’t paint color on the canvas I bought because it was too smooth to absorb color. So I painted over it before I started the actual work. Accidentally, I found the canvas held thin color very well, and I painted it over and over again. The overlapping layers and textures felt very much like ink and water on rice paper, which made me very excited for a while. I reviewed my ink works and decided to rethink the concept of ink and rice paper. This was the conjunction of all my works, I had many new ideas after that piece.

Jan: What are your source materials?

Shen: Brush, lines, ink dots. My materials are simple things which are repeated based on a basic concept. For example, I collected varieties of life forms, but they all originate form same gene. Or I can say my works come from the unique composition and skill in literature painting. Brush, lines, ink dots not only show the spiritual world and a desire for purity and peace, but also have the value of being shared with others. When we look at work by a master, we are attracted by the skill and composition of brush strokes that originated in ancient paintings. So, I think if I enlarge a detail from a painting by Bada Shan Ren or Shi Tao, which could be abstract painting.

English translation: Mary Ma