CONTEMPORARY AND ANTI-CONTEMPORARY IN MIANHUA’S ARTWORK

Maleonn
Photographer, writer, puppet show director

I was greatly impressed at the first sight of Mianhua’s painting. There is something associated to primitivism in her paintings. The unlearnt is able to paint. As an academically cultivated artist, I’m always struggling to learn to paint. It seems that one must study for years to master the art. When I saw Mianhua’s works I was stunned by her excellence. She seemed to have penetrated the mystery of art and learn to paint on her own way.

There is a very large work in her studio, about five or six meters wide, composed of three pieces together. What’s in the painting looks like a flame, a flower, a vortex, or something indescribable fluttering in the wind. I was particularly amazed and deeply touched by this work.

While I was an art student, I read about a painter named Georgia O’Keeffe, who was painting with a passion for life. Mianhua is a self-taught artist who paints in the same spirit of O’Keeffe. Her brushes interpret an inner rhythm, a feminine perception of life, a velocity, which all converge under her unique sensitivity.

Contemporary art, including some specific art genres, is very abstract in themselves. And the expression of the abstract is only to be accomplished through a certain means. It is expected that the works shall reflect on human soul and the spiritual world. A painter actively manifests his own life experience and feelings, and embodies them by means of a specific medium. Of course, there are also artists dealing with the realistic. These artists paint women, flowers, ponds, and sunrises. But in fact, in the process of painting, the scenes in the picture are not what they truly want to express. Actually, they are using brushes to infinitely approach their souls and to reach an awareness of inner feelings. When I looked at Mianhua’s paintings, what astonished me was that she could fulfill that part instantaneously.

Mianhua’s paintings strike me with a peculiar sensitivity that is associated to an autistic quality. It often happens to myself too when I create. An artist must step back, pull back from the outside world and retreat to the depth of his own heart, so that he can be aware of the most sensitive places and grasp something unspeakable. Mianhua’s works reflect a sensitivity that taps into the utmost feminine perception.

Contemporary art tries to deviate from the most fundamental and essential part of painting, that is, beauty. When contemporary art first became a rebel, it showed a very rebellious attitude, that is, to oppose beauty, sometimes to reveal ugliness and what the artists wanted to express in radical ways. This kind of rebellion in the past was right because a revolution was needed timely. However, as a matter of fact, modern art has been developing for a hundred years now. Contemporary art is a new reaction to the current society now and here. This rebellious spirit earlier we found in modern art is no longer novel, but has become normalized. On the contrary, the return to beauty can be regarded as a new and modern gesture in this rebellious era. I myself also pursue beauty in my creation. My work strives to be aesthetically articulated. However, the content of beauty itself could be diversified.

I recalled my first encounter with the Biennale, which was rather mind blowing. The ways that the artists made their artwork were unheard for me. They broke down various disciplinary boundaries, combined anthropology and natural sciences with art, and deconstructed various media. I thought it was quite cool at the time. But in fact, contemporary art becomes a game. It’s now an old game and is in danger of losing its revolutionary potential. As such a game has come to an end, it is time to return to the fundamental of art. That is, to return to the significance of being a painter as an individual living in this world. It actually refers to the most beautiful, or the most primitive part of art.

I think an artist like Mianhua is very contemporary-spirited, and this spirit is both contemporary and anti-contemporary. It is great that every author is able to pursue the ultimate beauty in their eyes, and to undertake it seriously.

It takes a long time to paint a large-scale painting. Nothing could distract the painter away from painting in the whole process. An individual’s life has a limit. A painting may take one or two days to accomplish. It may take as long as three months, which then adds up to ninety days in the painter’s life during which she would be assigned to nothing else but painting. Every time Mianhua finishes a new painting, she transferred her lifetime into an artwork. This is not a smart decision in times like this. To undertake this laborious task shows “dumbness” to our contemporary spirit, but it also reflects a romantic and uplifting spirit of the artist.

Shanghai, April 2018