In the Distance, So Near
Zhou Jinhua ( de )
Young Chinese Artists, The Next Generation, Prestel Verlag, 2008-9
Beijing artist Zhou Jinhua feels deeply connected to the people he observes and paints from a more or less considerable distance. “The bird’s-eye view I adopt for my pictures is not a position of power for me – I need distance from the event in order to understand what’s happening there.”
The artist identifies himself as a pessimist; his mood: melancholy. His life experiences don’t exactly incline him to a feeling of confidence, especially since he moved from Sichuan to Beijing. He is aware of the contradictory situation in which he lives: on the one hand availing himself of the advantages of the metropolis, and on the other realizing that the rapid modernization of the city comes at a cost.
His works allow for this ambivalence, conveying the double standard and ostensible harmlessness of the reality that surrounds him in the varied play of near and far. From afar, Zhou Jinhua’s works – often in large format – have a contemplative effect. For the fl at and largely unformed backgrounds, the artist chooses a predominantly friendly palette, such as lilac, mint, egg yolk yellow, or ochre. It is only when one stares closely at a detail that the scene’s sometimes apocalyptical dimensions become clear.
What, for example, is going on in the Spotty-Series (2005)? A filthy, oily film flows over portions of the canvas. Between the people who perambulate alone or in groups and a clearly unmotivated manner across the pictorial space, red spots appear again and again. Blood? Freedom of Travel (2007) presents an exceptionally macabre scenario: a seemingly endless row of waiting people of which the first sink down and are dragged off over the floor, their wrists bound, in the direction of a luxuriant batch of flowers. Their suitcases pile up between uniformed characters armed with bludgeons. Off to the side lovers are amusing themselves. Where does this travel lead to?
In the early phases of his artistic career, Zhou Jinhua photographed various scenes of bridges or high-rises. But the results left him dissatisfied. Since the completion of his studies he has been painting his miniature people in oil on canvas. “Painting gives me the freedom to choose which perspective I will take, how much I want to empathize with a single person, or if I should focus my observation on humanity in general.”
Zhou Jinhua’s tenor is deeply molded by traditional Chinese art, literature, and philosophy. The open spaces in his pictures clearly indicate a reverence for traditional landscape painting. These spaces, so particular to the “Mountain and River Painting” scrolls (Chinese: shan shui hua) still highly valued today, offer the viewer a place to reflect. The lack of a single perspective, too, owes itself to the guiding maxims of the Chinese masters – that no one particular perspective should dominate the picture. It is the task of art to mirror ideas that are valid beyond the moment.
The Recluse (2006), however, exposes a highly conceited and trivial take on religion. Leaning on the aesthetic of traditional Chinese landscape painting, little details of the composition point to the illusory nature of the country idyll: electrical cables run into the hermitage and urbanite clothing hangs on a drying line, while the weekend Buddhists in monks’ robes sit on the floor.
As a matter of course borrowings from Confucius or Lao-tzu flow into Zhou Jinhua’s ponderings and shape the values of his own life. “Confucius says one must grapple with both the positive and negative sides of life, and may not permanently withdraw oneself from society.” The viewer can reproduce the artist’s inner deliberation with his own eyes, going from picture to picture and allowing himself to be drawn in as if looking through a telephoto lens. Only one who takes the time to honor the pictures’ details, with its central theme and many subsidiary scenarios, will understand the full story.
Sometimes it’s an abstract idea that initiates a composition, sometimes an observation which Zhou Jinhua has captured in a photograph, sometimes it’s an article or picture in a newspaper. The sources of inspiration are no longer recognizable in the work itself. His stock of themes is simply inexhaustible: fantastical end-time scenarios in which people go on a pilgrimage to a glowing cleft in the earth (Outing, 2006), or where the beggarly remains of a ship in a desert landscape proffer little hope to the people stranded there (Sinking Ship, 2006); the absurd disparity between a totally desolate neighborhood and an undamaged statue of Mao towering into the sky (After the Storm 2, 2007); the parody of pseudo-nature-loving urbanites in The Long Weekend (2006).
One of his newest pictures makes an exception by alluding directly to a concrete experience based on international headlines. It shows the last house of a settlement in the southern Chinese city of Chongqing that has fallen victim to China’s rampant modernization madness. For weeks, a lone occupant resisted eviction and refused to leave his house. This picture is also notable for the ink wash- or watercolor-like appearance with which Zhou Jinhua forms the mid- and background. It clearly documents a compositional redefining of the image plane.
In Tragedy (2006), Zhou Jinhua refers to one of his favorite Western artists Pieter Bruegel. Despite the artist’s strong leanings toward his own tradition, the miniature-packed and grotesquely overcrowded environments common to both artists allow one to draw parallels between the painter of the Dutch Renaissance and the Chinese artist of the present. And yet another thing binds the two: to this day, art history has trouble fitting Bruegel into any established genre or category.
The interview with the artist took place in April 2008 in Beijing. I want to thank Zhao Chong for his efforts as a translator and adviser.
In: Young Chinese Artists. The Next Generation, Editors: Christoph Noe, Xenia Piëch und Cordelia Steiner.
Prestel Publishing September 2008
Hardcover, 296 pages
310 images
