Everlasting—Work Description by the Artist Chen Lihua

I am happy to hear the viewer’s insight when interpreting my works. My painting process is an unrestricted extension, where I follow my mind and only seek freedom in creation. No matter what I want to express, it cannot be separated from this fundamental. For me, painting is a search for pleasure.

In the creative process, I deconstruct forms through technical processing to establish the logic of my works, so their original appearance is occasionally glimpsed. If the shape (form) becomes segments (the product of fragmentation and deconstruction), it will create an incredible visual image, which motivates the viewer’s feelings and sentiments, and also changes the conventional viewing mode of images, which has long been the primary choice of the viewer. When looking at the work, the viewer is the follower and analyzer. The work is the object of analysis and is subjected to various logics. The direct result is to separate the viewer from the work, which is to follow the logic but disconnect from the work. I hope that the counterpart of “unrestricted painting” is “unrestricted interpretation”. Even if the target object contains a specific meaning, it may also give rise to many possibilities. In my world, the viewer is the one who “sees” and is “present”. In many interpretations, the work is a closed world only to be observed, but if the viewer experiences the work and communicates with heart, he can connect with it, which is the meaning of looking. The viewer’s mind is important to me, but it does not mean that I emphasize the viewer’s subjectivity. On the contrary, I want to abandon the discussion of “subjectivity” and raise the viewer’s awareness of the first subjective observation, through the deconstruction of colors and the resemblance of details, to discover and enrich the meaning of my work. 

In this series, I present a world that seems chaotic yet intuitive and impactful, which contains various life experiences, initially experiences of my own. For example, Flow created in 2011 illustrates the fluidity of life, seeking dynamics in a static state, and shaping the world by time. In Chinese philosophy, it is a view of life, which does not separate space from time. The “thing” is not a static point, but a process of manifestation, which is a “flowing” and “connected” existence. There is an all-embracing relationship between lives. Time passes like this. Thinking about life and death from the perspective of fluidity is the insight I base on to create the work.

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The series Medical Malpractice, a group of four paintings created in 2008, is a process that emphasizes inner transcendence. Medical Malpractice No. 1 is “treatment”, which must happen at a certain level of consciousness, no matter whether you take initiative or remain passive in dilemma. Medical Malpractice No. 2 is “illusion”, a symbol when an overwhelming negative emotion arises in the struggle. Medical Malpractice No. 3 is “transcendence”, a brilliant world outside the “cave”. Like a spiritual hike, both No. 2 and No. 3 present a state of disorientation and illusion. Medical Malpractice No. 4 is “reality”, a kind of return. Nothing seems changed. However, the mountain is no longer the mountain earlier, yet it’s still a mountain (transcendence and return). Sometimes changes may not develop in a preset direction, and things unwanted or the so-called “accidents” may happen in the process. But from a macro point of view, this may not necessarily a bad thing.

The ongoing RB series since 2009, and the work Fresh and Heart created in 2010 are a continuation of this idea. “RB” refers to red blood, a symbolic color and name. It’s just the right thing to describe a series of life experiences that present all sorts of states of life. Fresh is intended to reflect a kind of temporal sorrow, which is a state of time with a regret that can disappear at any moment.

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The Endless series, which began in late 2009, is an attempt to create a rhythmic, non-realistic world that can reflect and compensate for certain regret. The idea is from an experiment on paper in 2006, which matured in 2009. Whether it is the intertwined relationship of lives in the early series, or the poetic (spiritual) solitude like a scene of a goose disappearing in the later series, it is a start, revealing the eternity of a moment and the silence of spring and autumn.

As mentioned above, my works are not specific life experiences of mine, which can serve as an introduction to more life experiences of the viewer. I enjoy this kind of interaction, and I am willing to see the inner world of all kinds of people. The meaning lies in the work itself, instead of the artist behind the work. The meaning of everlasting is that it exists as the form and nature (properties) of the work itself.