Blue of Existence
"Blue is the most ancient chromatic memory, a maternal breath of the ocean hidden in our lives, an endless longing that permeates and embraces the world. Like the azure sky that simultaneously reveals and conceals the mysterious invisible, the blue of art has always awaited artists to awaken it, only to unveil its enchanting veil. To breathe in blue is the most captivating immersion—it is not about us expressing blue, but rather being filled by it.
Two female artists, Kang Lei and Chen Zijun, bring before us the blues of both the north and the south. With their blue-toned paintings, they evoke a long-lost sense of happiness, their brushstrokes following the natural growth and fullness of the color itself—now light, now heavy—allowing blue to embrace forms, giving birth to blue flowers and even blue humanity, immersing entire landscapes in blue dreams where even melancholy can sing. Their unique expression of color transforms the painting’s surface into skin warmed by emotion, where lines become caressing touches and brushstrokes sink into the shadows of time. Memories awaken in the murmurs of silhouettes, where ancient love sways gently. Flowers and birds, people and trees, begin their first conversations, thriving vigorously from the mottled shadows.
Painting brings forth the blue that gazes upon existence itself—an indescribable blue. It is blue itself arriving on the canvas, blue summoning the painting into being, bringing an intimacy that dissolves our words, constructing an innocent Eden where dreams grow. This is an omnipresent blue—blue breathing, blue whispering, blue dreaming.
How is such a delicate inversion possible in painting? Both artists, as university teachers, transform masterful and solid forms into light brushstrokes while returning elegant figures to the inner depths of painting. This is because they have long explored the poetry of tones between oil and tempera, between water-based and oil-based mediums, conveying hues of shallow breath in deep affection. The existence of memory lies in preserving that eternal youth shimmering in the bright sunlight, like the flower-adorned young girls in Proust’s novels, yearning to reunite in the radiant blue shadows of a faun’s afternoon."
2024.09.
Client:
Cheng Zijun
艺术家陈子君
Wang Changqiao
Motion Designer:
Wang Changqiao
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