A Person and His World

---- Simple Analysis of Zhong Shan's Paintings

by Yi Ying
October 1998

If we spread out Zhong Shan's paintings in order, the flow of a kind of style would be seen as if he walks out from his own space to the outside world. The changes in his style over such short few years reflected his conscious pursuit of art. His individual experience is reflected much like an invisible hand restricting his art ambition. Trying to understand the positioning of his style, his initial works undoubtedly belong to surrealistic style, showing he was a very powerfully subjective artist from the very beginning. For such an artist, the starting point of art creation is certainly introspection of individual experiences. Though Zhong Shan's creative growth, both the personal fantastic world and outside real world appear in his paintings in various modalities. It seems a conflict. However, if we trace his track of thing we can see a reasonable process of evolution. Although conflice still exists, it was converted intangible into his approach and subject. In terms of the most traditional theory, art is a reflection of life and an artist is like white paper, which is dotted with his own stamps of like. This is a rule and Zhong Shan's process runs with this rule even though he is a contemporary artist.

His early paintings were a fantastic world filled with fancy imagination and memories of a child, the picture pan of which is not completely like that of Surrealism, and not like the simplicity of primitivism. But both above rational and simplicity are contained in his paintings. In fact, Zhong Shan still has a kind of naiveté like a student. The constitution of the style at the time probably had three sources under careful analysis. Fist is the professional impact on him in Mural Department in China Central Academy of Fine Art. Thus, a picture plane more completely unifies the structure of very grand scene, the fine processing of part, and the management of symbolic entities of figures.

Secondly, Zhong Shan is from the South. The modern southern art has shown special occultism after 1980's. This kind of Occultism was presented in his paintings. The mysterious sensation was from special local culture in Guizhou province, which has always strongly impacted mainstream culture in the understanding and explaining life, nature and cosmic. In Red Dragonfly and Blue Dream, wild and mysterious natural views, and bizarre insects and plants with strange shapes fascinate us into a magic world. These scenes tie up the artist's culture experiences and memories from a young age.

Thirdly, as a young man growing up in 1990's, the time of Zhong Shan's childhood and boyhood has gradually transformed into a modern information society. The impact of modern information finds expression in two aspects. One is direct influence, which is the information of modern art he actively accepts, for example his combination of Surrealism and Primitivism under local culture. His fantasy world did not derive from local culture but was brightened by modern art he had been exposed to. For example, in Blue Dream, there is a statue of an aborigine in the bottom right side of the canvas with kerchief, earrings and necklace which have a kind of implication of totem as mysterious apocalypse of life; but in the middle of picture plane there also is a head statue traced out by a line like a string, making us associated with some figures of Picasso. No matter what symbolic intend Zhong Shan had when he put the two figures together, applying such figures speak for the direct influence of modern art had on him. The other is indirect influence, a clue that can help us understand his later changes in style. In Eternal Sun City produced in 1994, the same year as Blue Dream, we can see very big difference from above works discussed that is the distinction of local culture gradually disappeared and changed to a surrealistic scene of future world. This actually was from memories of modern life experiences, that is to say, the image of media occupying the visual space of people of contemporary generation dominates potentially there visual imagination. These pictures evoke with "Future World", "Star Wars", and cartoon pictures from TV programs that attract innumerable children. Zhong Shan just transferred this kind of vague memories of experiences to a clear image of scene, creating a wild view of modern society. It should be said that Zhong Shan at this stage is the purest ego and his creation actually is a reflection of his own personal interest and experiences.

Since 1995, Zhong Shan's paintings have developed to actualization. But it is not far away from his dreamlike world. Symbolized by "puppet series" at this stage, illusion began to change to fantasy. In the sight of form, it is as if the part of his Surrealism was enlarged but content was a compounding us of symbolism and realism. The figure of puppets attached by strings presented in his Norms in 1994. But it has distinct representation as a single subject matter. Why did this change come out? Zhong Shan did not explain in set terms. He just said that he was deeply impressed with puppet play at his young age. From the implied meaning in these paintings, however, its deep attention society is supposed to reflect his understanding of life, that is personal circumstance compels arts to divert style and subject. The puppets pulled by string represent that Man is not free in his circumstance and is limited and controlled by intangible hands of society. In this sight of time, Zhong Shan has been living as a professional artist for a period of time during which artistic purity that graduates generally posses just after leaving from college was taken over by living difficulties, and the dreams of childhood faced away gradually in living affliction. Of course, this still is a phase in which Surrealism couples with Symbolism. Not only did it show the artist's bewilderment in living, but it also reflected his oscillation in art indirectly.

In last two years, Zhong Shan has still been wolking between the real and surreal, in other words between no ego and ego, and the distance between them was lengthened. In terms of style, it seems a conflict that an artist contains several kinds of styles at one time. However, it can be considered as a way by which that artist recognizes the society and researches on styles, too. He recognizes real through subject, and then transfers it to surreal. Unlike his "puppet" series with specific symbolism, Zhong Shan's observation and interest in life is mirrored in his real subjects. But once he goes into surreal picture plane, for example Journey to the West, the cognition and sensation in real change to definite or cryptic representation. Surrealistic picture plane, at this time, is not like that naiveté and simplicity at his early time. Even the image of media and visual effect in early experience are weakened. But a kind of deep, grand culture metaphor and criticism began to burgeon. At this point, Zhong Shan's focus on reality is a sort of burdensome translation. He is not only learning society, but also re-finding himself, this injecting new energy into his art. However, this process is ongoing. We are looking forward its new deepening and leaping.