Qiao Space Talk｜Mao Yan x Zhang Yunyao x He Jing: The Issue of Painting in the Painting

Mao Yan: Maybe because (contemporary) painting has been facing this problem from the very beginning, from the photographic art, before that, the classical painters we know were probably all “outward”. For example, the zenith paintings and frescoes in churches and courts, and some public art, which served as a teaching and propaganda function. Therefore, since the intervention of photography and many modern technologies, painting has been facing this problem, feeling that it is shrinking on many levels, and even the classical, which we have been trying to praise, seems to be more and more distant in a sense. But I personally never seem to be troubled by such a problem. Because painting, as a very unique language of art, has a meaning that cannot be replaced. When we talk about language, the language of painting is independent. Just like the language of music and literature, the language of painting has its own very strong independence, and of course there is its so-called closedness. The question now is, how can painting expand itself to a greater extent today, and that is the only thing. So when we talk about any language, let’s say about writing, you just have to express yourself, to know it well, and to use this language. In Zhang Yunyao’s works, let’s say the use of images, how he transforms them into a unique language through materials and techniques. I am always curious about the way he chooses to do this.

He Jing: You just focused on language, and Yunyao just explained it more from the perspective of his own experience. A question that immediately comes to my mind is that many of our painters today start from images, that is, they create based on images – of course, sketching is another big issue. If we say that we create from images, we do not necessarily achieve “painting”. Even within painting, there are different types of “painters”, or types of work. Some artists start from images, and in the end, they still end up in images; but in the end, there are some people, some painters, as Mao Yan said, the direction he pursues and the problem he solves in the end is the problem of painting, the problem of language. So I think this is actually very delicate. Maybe Yunyao can talk about it from your own experience.

Zhang Yunyao: I think the relationship between images and painting that you just mentioned is indeed very subtle. Because from the day painting was born, images were born with it. Probably the earliest images created by primitive people were expressed with their hands and bodies; and nowadays, in this contemporary society, we still use other media (other than painting) to express images. Although the relationship is very delicate, I think there is still a clear line. It is what to paint and how to paint, the image itself will form a result.

Julia He: The question of images or painting.

Zhang Yunyao: Yes, what we call an image is actually a product made by the producer of the image, which may be a machine or a person. But “painting” may be an overall concept, which may involve a temporality and the artist’s own style, and its scope is much broader in my opinion. From the perspective of my own creation, images have always been a point of interest to me. Since I graduated from the oil painting department and studied oil painting for four years, the training I received in school was more traditional in terms of sketching, training to master some basic elements of painting. But in the process of repeated sketching, you have a reflection of the object you are sketching or depicting – that is, what you see will be expressed through your eyes and brain, and through your hands. But at the same time, it often happens that when you are sketching, your teacher will say that you did not draw this, and you should draw it how you want. But I think, on the contrary, when you draw “off”, when you don’t “draw out” the sketching object completely, that thing is actually your own. This is what He Jing calls “detachment”. As you paint, you paint something of your own, and that’s when “painting” is created. And then we talk about how to distinguish the boundary between sketching and images. For example, my creation uses a lot of computers and electronic screens, but also some traditional collages, or sketching manuscripts that more traditional painters would use, which is a more comprehensive process. However, the manuscript formed in this process is not projected directly onto the canvas, as traditional painters do. My creative process is always facing a computer screen, and I am looking at the screen to paint, so the final image actually contains a response from the screen. Therefore, my creation is very closely related to the image itself. However, when I first saw your works before I knew you, I thought they might be sketches, but as you mentioned, you actually used the most common photos. So I would also like to ask Mr. Mao to tell us about this.

Mao Yan: Life drawing was too old-fashioned and traditional for us to learn painting at that time, so I basically gave up life drawing in that sense after I graduated. The main body of our art school education is still to this day to draw a tiger from a cat, but it is not actually to do this thing from this thing, it is actually a kind of transformation, in the process of how to transform your personal characteristics, your personal unique feelings. So of course I refer to pictures and photos later, but I have a principle. Let’s say I see a lot of students’ works now, they are paintings, but I can tell at first glance that they are drawing photos, or many students’ behavior nowadays is to cut a screen, have a picture, and crackle over. At first glance it looks like you’re drawing a photograph. That is, it clearly has nothing to do with what it’s drawing. And my principle is that everything in the image, including the most ordinary, primitive photos, images, everything I have to turn it into the language of painting, that is to say, I have filtered this layer of industrial feeling in the picture. It has been separated from the so-called authenticity that we see, or many layers.

Zhang Yunyao: It can be said that this compartment is brought by a machine, it could be a camera, or a computer screen.

Mao Yan: Right. In fact, through photography, we are trying to restore the feeling of our eyes. But on the contrary, in all similar inventions, photography or camera is actually farther and farther away from our original intention, the original intention. Here is another problem. So I want to turn all these things into the language of painting as I understand it. In this language, (simply put) including tone, light and dark, shape, ….. All of them, including the language or the so-called technical things, the use of brush, and so on.

Zhang Yunyao: All of them are the basic elements of painting.

Mao Yan: So, what is the purpose? The purpose is to make it look like “a painting”. It is a very complete, very clear, even stubborn painting, not that I have painted something. That’s how I understand painting. If we talk about the language of painting, there is no doubt that it is thanks to the creation of the classical masters that we know. For example, Cézanne’s understanding of nature, in fact I think nature and images can actually be equated. So, in fact it’s just the concept that has changed, but we are talking about the same thing, the pictoriality that Cézanne was dealing with in that period, for him it was a pictorial essence, a principle. The possibility we are discussing today is actually still a question of the principle of painting.

He Jing: Can you expand on the point you made earlier about “nature is equivalent to image”?

Mao Yan: Delacroix said something that is very simple, but particularly interesting. He said that the brushstroke is invisible in nature, and the brushstroke is the transformation of painting, so the charm of painting in that period is there. The same is true of our traditional Chinese painting, which is creating an experience that is completely detached from nature, a very advanced experience, and very classical, with a strong sense of beauty, and there is no reason for us to avoid these things. Cézanne’s pictoriality was already different, he was no longer satisfied with those earlier impressionisms, he wanted to re-establish a structure. That is why Cézanne’s approach seems so unrestrained and monotonous, but there is a problem of structure in his work. Before him, the early impressionists had already messed up the structure, they didn’t care too much about the structure, they only cared about the eyes, the colors and the colors. Cézanne was totally unacceptable and said I want to reshape a structure. This structure is also something that belongs to “painting”.

He Jing: When it comes to the issue of “structure”, I have discussed with Yun Yao before whether the autonomy of painting, or what we call “painting”, is a kind of writing? Mr. Mao mentioned the issue of structure, which is even more abstract, including the difference between calligraphy and brush painting in Chinese painting, which you just mentioned, that there may be a kind of writing or painting in the former. Yun Yao’s starting point for this exhibition is also from here. It is interesting to note that his painting process is very procedural, in fact he starts from the process and method, the special nature of felt makes it impossible for the painter to “modify” the picture, the requirement is to “go over it”, not to repeat it. That’s why he said that the painting process is a bit like a printer “pushing”, everything is done at once. It requires extreme control and leaves no traces, so this process does not have the so-called writing and expression of painting, or the sense of vibrancy of painting that we often see in expressive painting. Therefore, his works are conceptually “anti-painting”, but we can feel something very sensual in the picture, including the sense of body and pain. It’s interesting to see the back and forth between these two.

Zhang Yunyao: Mr. Mao has just touched on many issues in a short period of time, so I will continue with this point. For example, we talked about the relationship between Goya and Velasquez last time, and many artists nowadays are also looking for traces from their predecessors to feed their current paintings. I may have used a reverse thinking: does our current painting have to be “painterly”? Does it have to go on within the framework of “painting”? I think there may be other possibilities. What is the reason for this possibility? For me, it should be the material. Because the contemporary environment gives you a lot of material possibilities, not limited to canvas, paper and brush, but also a lot of new media to express painting. So at that time, I found the characteristics of felt material, which provides a possibility to paint from a “anti-painting” position. In other words, the whole process of my creation is the “opposite” of painting – it looks like the appearance of painting, but the way of creation is not painting.

He Jing: This process is not painting.

Zhang Yunyao: For me it’s more like cartography, without emotion and without chance. For some painters, the expression of the brushstrokes, color blocks or colors used is closely connected to the state of the creator’s physical body, but for me, I cut these things out. So the process of creation needs a lot of time as a guarantee, which also leads to another topic, the important role played by temporality in painting.

Mao Yan: In Yun Yao’s works, the felt material is very unique, both in terms of the material itself and from a visual perspective. The visual tension formed by the combination of felt and images in his works has an element of terror and violence in it. So I think there is a paradox between the way and the material and the “painting” we are talking about. Let’s say Yun Yao’s works end up as easel paintings, which means that the understanding of his paintings still has to be through the images, not through computer output or any other way. I don’t think you suddenly find the idea of felt one day, there must be a long process of experimentation, slowly approaching the material and then “entering” it. This selectivity itself is undoubtedly a reflection on paintability, an end result of this reflection. From another kind of paradox, just like the book I read by the American poet Ashbery called “A Different Tradition”, he chose to put in secondary poems instead of important ones, explaining that those important ones do not need to be discussed anymore.

Zhang Yunyao: I also think of Mi Fu, a calligrapher in Chinese history, who started to learn from Wang Xizhi, because there was something of Wang Xizhi in his stuff; but then Su Shi said you can change the way you think, you can learn from Wang Xianzhi, and instead you will find something more interesting from Wang Xianzhi. So I think this point is exactly the same as the point you just mentioned about the poet, that is, in the process of inheritance, sometimes you have to “move” and awaken the thinking.

Mao Yan: Yes. There are many similar cases like this, including Richter’s early remark that he considered a XXX(?) photo more important to him than a photograph. s photograph was more important to him than one of Cézanne’s works. This is not to say that he had a contempt for Cézanne, but it was closely related to his own (creative) work, for which he also had to find a good reason. This relates to the kind of painting that we understand, including the limitations and the closed nature of painting that I just emphasized. But we have just talked about the fact that abstract art and abstract painting have already begun a kind of dismemberment of traditional painting a long time ago, (yet painting still has its own possibilities today). So from this perspective, I think the possibilities of painting are endless.

He Jing: I think in the paintings of Mao Yan and Yun Yao, we all feel that there is a certain classicality, or a historical relationship with painting. This is not a simple classical complex, certainly not, because the complex is still a very simple thing. Rather, where do you stand and which tradition (or history) do you see? Today’s painter also needs to deal with his relationship with history, you cannot pretend to be blind to the historical threads or relationships of painting, just as even within painting, different painters may see a different “tradition”. For example, Géricault was revived only after Modernism, which is related both to our view of Géricault in the Classical system and to his relationship with Modernism, which is different from the tradition of painting from Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio all the way down. So how you view the tradition is actually entirely a matter of where you stand today to view it.

Zhang Yunyao: First of all, I think there is no doubt that for the practitioners of painting, they must understand the history of painting. If you say that my painting is a brand new thing, I don’t believe that such a thing exists. There are a lot of Western images in my works, such as sculptures, images about violence, images about physical conflicts. I think this stuff is definitely based on my understanding of the people who came before me. Those things may be 500 years or 1,000 years old, created by an artist at that time, and now I am also looking at it again as an artist. This can be said to be a second creation process, and therefore it will definitely be corroborated with the clues of the previous artists. So on my side, this is not a particularly big problem.

At the same time, we also mentioned earlier that when an artist paints, the so-called subject matter is what to paint. For me, the first is from the perspective of art history; the second is from myself, from my own point of view. I believe that as an artist, you definitely want to say something you want to say, and from this perspective, I personally may have a special feeling for the human body and the intersection and entanglement of these limbs, so I choose to create in this way.

He Jing: When it comes to the question of what to paint, I think there are two problems: one is that there must be an inherent connection between what you paint and the subject you are exploring in your painting. For example, if Cézanne painted an apple, was the apple important to him? It seems to be very important. But at the same time, the fruit, the nude woman, the mountain, all these seem to be unimportant, they are all fine. There is an inherent relationship here, but it is not necessarily explicit. Another problem is that what you paint is not necessarily this thing that you paint. For example, when we enter Yun Yao’s exhibition site, we see that he paints classical sculptures, human bodies, torsos. But this is probably just an entrance, a channel, as the painter gets closer to what he is seeking, he paints energy or tension or even a sense of pain, that is not what we capture in the image. Then, for example, we see the portrait painted by Mr. Mao Yan, over and over again, is he painting that person? Just like Freud had a model who said a very interesting sentence, he said, I think Freud painted not me, but my portrait. I think this is a very high opinion of the painter, that is to say, it is the painter himself, something he created, something that does not exist in nature.

Mao Yan: So I think the artist, the painter, shapes a kind of consciousness. It is crucial to have a very strong sense of being shaped to realize this painting. In other words, many people are painting the same thing, and they are using a system and language of painting. perspective? Is it even based on your own illusion, a kind of creative guidance? This is very important. All the “mistakes”, all the “distortions”, all the “incorrectness” and “inaccuracy” produced here It may be a very natural relationship with “you”. That’s why I always say to my students that painting is never about your accuracy, it’s not important whether you are accurate or not, what’s important is that you want to express yourself, you have to know what you want to express. So it seems that there is no difference when you do the same thing, but in fact, the difference is very big.

Zhang Yunyao: Yes, I think this is very interesting, that is, the painter’s willpower. In a certain sense, he is a bit like a fascist, his willpower, his realization of his own things, is actually very dictatorial. You don’t listen to anyone’s opinion, you have a clear idea, a thought. You have to keep on painting, and that temporality slowly becomes clearer and clearer from his paintings. In such a very long time process, it is a very big test for the artist’s will power.

He Jing: Do you have any questions from the audience here?

Audience 1: Hello teachers, when I see the paintings of Mr. Mao or Mr. Zhang Yunyao, I feel that there is an ambiguous and blurred feeling in them, so I would like to ask why there is such a feeling?

Zhang Yunyao; would you say ambiguous or vague? Maybe I am a more ambiguous person than myself, my personality is the reason, there is no part that can be designed. Every artist, especially a painter, his paintings do not lie. In my case, if I am not consistent, it won’t work, what kind of person I am, what kind of painting I am.

Mao Yan: I am not an ambiguous person at all. But I remember a friend said that when he looked at my painting of Thomas, he really felt very ambiguous. But when he said that Thomas was very ambiguous, he also said that he was very sexy. Another person said that my painting of Thomas was too “high”, because when I painted him with his eyes closed, he looked completely high. This friend must be a devout believer. So, it varies from person to person. But this is very important, very good. Because in terms of the same work, the artist is not even the one who can judge his own work. The artist may, from a certain point of view, on the one hand, have a stubborn sense of self to finish the work; on the other hand, maybe the artist is just the finisher of the work, he is just one of the people who did it, and he may be far less important. He may just finish it, through a feeling, just finish it. So it may not matter what the work wants to express, but his work should have enough space margin to let different people get different feelings, or rather, different people need different things, this is very remarkable and a good state. In other words, after the artist finishes his work, he can rest completely and does not need to explain his work, but on another level he has to explain his work. So, it’s all possible, anything.

Audience 2: I would like to ask both of you, when you paint, do you have doubts in your mind after a period of time? Whether it’s your feelings or your techniques, if you don’t get affirmation for a long time, will there be times when you doubt yourself?

Zhang Yunyao: This question is quite interesting. I think in the process of painting, every painting will experience the state you just mentioned, because my paintings often take a month or two, or even three months to finish. During such a long process, especially at the beginning, there is nothing and I don’t know where to go. But the way I use felt, I can’t afford to make mistakes, so there must be a clear line to go forward. So I think every painting in the process of creation will experience the doubts you just mentioned, but at the same time I have my obsession, this obsession is very stubborn and stubborn, you just have to make it out. Then I think this problem will be solved.

Mao Yan: The audience member who just asked a question, you are probably still in the student stage, very young. This is how I understand it: self-doubt is an ability, not a bad thing, but a very good ability. But it may also therefore reflect on yourself in some ways. Why do you feel this way? It is simple, because you are not satisfied with what you do, you have to often reflect on what aspects of some problems, this is a very simple and common thing. Another point is that I think at a relatively young age, whether it’s painting or doing anything, I always tell my daughter that you have to be confident, but confidence doesn’t come out of nowhere, confidence comes through training. I mean, only when you are confident will you be able to bring out your own true characteristics. So I think, at this stage of your life, don’t think about the rightness or wrongness of this thing, or even about every painting you do, you just do this thing every day, invest time and focus, it’s still more important. And the most important point is the implementation, this method is actually very simple, like the special forces training methods, you are over there for three months of special training, you are not learning skills, nor learning techniques, is a way, you will be able to experience the thrill and confidence of what you do.