[Interview] Shen Chen：An Interview with Guy Goodwin（2007）

G:  Shen Chen, you and I met at Skowhegan School of Art in 1988. I knowthat you had just arrived in this country. I remember you telling me that the abstract paintings you were working on when you arrived were seen as going against the established way of making art in China at that time, that in fact, they were considered revolutionary. The works were large ink pieces on paper; they emphasized calligraphic strokes and large washes of gray tones.  Could you talk about those works and what you were influenced by at the time?

S: I remember the paintings I was working on were very large ink paintingson paper. They were made up of four or five pieces of paper and each piecewas about 25 x 50 inches. It was very much about calligraphic strokes andthe arrangement of space on the page. I worked with a lot of brushstrokeswhich had elements of calligraphy or looked like fragments of calligraphy.

I poured or splashed water onto the pieces of paper to give the painting’sbackground different washes of gray tones. The paintings were filled with action or movement because I had to wear special shoes and jumped from one place (on the paper) to another throughout the whole process. There were some collages as well. That was a very important period of time in mylife.  It was the first time I had worked abroad. You and David Reed always came to my studio and gave me a lot of advice and encouragement. I have to say that those paintings were my most experimental exercises to that time. You saw all of those pieces, didn’t you?

I will never forget how moved I was when I first saw works by Pollock and Rauschenberg as well as the German abstract expressionists during the early eighties when I was still in China. At that time, I was deeply influenced by the old masters of Chinese calligraphy and literati paintings, as well as western masters, you know, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline and others. I liked minimalism but was drawn to abstract expressionism in particular.

G:  Your new work still makes references to the ink paintings of that time but they are very different. Can you talk about the difference in materials and the process of making your paintings?

S: Technically speaking, I make my paintings now the same way I did before, although I now use acrylic and canvas instead of ink and paper.

I put my canvas down on the floor so I can work on a flat surface because I use flat Chinese brushes in order to make big strokes and mix paints in black with water.  My recent works are based on my ink paintings—the two are linked through basic ideals and technique. I intended to continue developing what the essence and concept of Chinese painting is to me, and to change the traditional knowledge about paper, ink and wash.

My previous works were typically Chinese in the use of materials and visual effects, and as abstract paintings, they were deeply rooted in calligraphic strokes and rhythm.  But recent works are more conceptual. The visual effects are more subtle. I am emphasizing a continuous creative process using vertical and repetitive brushstrokes as a simple visual vocabulary to instill the element of time and performance into my painting.  There are layers and layers of paint which are actually multiple brushstrokes that are drawn over and over again to create the mysterious effects in the panels of gray.

G:  What are the major influences on the new work and how much is the tradition of Chinese painting part of this? How important is the abstract art being made today in this country? Please talk about specific artists of the current period of contemporary art that you are interested in.

S: I would say that my recent works reflect mixed cultures of both classical Chinese painting and Western art. To me, traditional Chinese painting (literati painting in particular) is my fundamental knowledge of making art and is a basic resource for both painting ideals and technique. I started learning to paint by copying masterpieces when I was 12 or 13. It is unimaginable what Chinese paintings would be without the gesture of brushstrokes and the rhythm of lines. My painting is all about these basic elements. I’m also very much interested in the works of Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Franz Kline, and especially Brice Marden’s works from the late eighties to the mid-nineties. Their works all somehow suggest the ideal of creating a style that is all one’s own by absorbing another culture on the one hand, and digesting one’s own cultural heritage on the other.  

G:  I want to ask you about the latest work you have been doing. Why are they more and more subtle and complex? How do you think about their light? Are these paintings also involved with color or do you see them as being only black and white? I would like you to talk about the process of making these paintings.

S: I like to challenge myself. I want to see how far I can go with the concept of the repetition of brushstrokes. The process of creating some of my recent works involved more repetition and the element of time. It is interesting to point out that the more you paint, the less you can see the effort. If you look at this painting (No.7077-06), and compare it with that one (No. 6015-05) which you saw in my last show, it is more subtle and complex. The strokes cross and overlap each other in the middle of the canvas—what you see is a sort of mysterious emptiness in dark shades of gray. This is my practice of the philosophic ideal “more but less, empty but full.”

I had a discussion with some artists in Skowhegan regarding Chinese ink paintings. I believe that the theory “Mo Fen Wu Se” (Five Tints of Ink) in Chinese painting is not talking about how to use ink, but represents an ideal of how to feel the colors and how to view the world which might just physically appear black.  My paintings are mostly made up of shades of gray, which comes from black. Gray—there are a lot of different shades of gray, but to me, they are all different colors; this is the poetic spirit and mysterious power of Chinese ink painting.

I am creating a basic visual vocabulary by repeatedly making dark (black) and light (white) lines or brushstrokes. I always work on a flat canvas that is spread out on the floor. Because my studio is very small, I have to turn around at the four edges of the canvas because I paint from both the top and bottom. I use a wide and flat Chinese brush that contains enough water to mix with acrylic and then apply it onto the canvas multiple times. I make lines which are created by two strokes that overlap each other at the very edges or are separated by a space. I use flat strokes and sometimes side strokes which are made by using the side edge of the brush that is typical of Chinese painting technique. The different strokes yield different results.  The work embodies the continuation of time and the repetition of the simple act of using the brush. Someone suggested that understanding my painting process is equivalent to understanding the practice of meditation.  I can never really count how many layers I’ve applied to a finished painting. To make each stroke, you have to wait until the previous one dries completely. It takes me a long time to finish a painting—two or three weeks, sometimes even more then a month. In most cases, I know in my mind what I will paint before I start (like I do in my ink paintings) but sometimes I do a small study on paper as you can see on my wall. I can paint and paint endlessly but I stop at the moment when I feel it’s done.

G:  Finally, I would like you to talk about what painting means to you.  Could you also briefly address how you feel about my referring to your work as an example of the new international art world, which refers to an art form that is not connected to a specific country but is a global visual language?

S: Painting is a very personal thing to me, but at the same time, it is about my relationship to the world and the way I live in this transnational-cultural phenomenon. Painting is the one thing I want to do and I could never quit. You are absolutely right that my painting is very different from traditional Chinese painting.  It is also different from the Western painting that we are familiar with. Maybe I have been strongly influenced by both. Ever since I felt that I had lost my “identity,” I realized that I had actually gained great creative freedom. I have always believed that real “contemporary” or real “avant-garde” art (or whatever the real “new” art is), must be international and transcend any particular culture.  It is interesting that you mentioned a “new international art word,” because we live in a new age of globalization and artists today are creating a global visual language.

Guy Goodwin is an artist who lives and works in New York. His paintings were exhibited first in the Whitney Annual of 1972 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, than at a group show at Bykert Gallery in 1974; he has continued to show his work in New York since that time. Guy Goodwin is most well known artist working in New York today.