重庆这几年发展迅猛，变化巨大。交通图几乎每月一换，到处可看见或拆、或建的楼房。在推倒的楼房中有群农民工每天把拆下的砖、楼板、门窗等清理分类，装车后由工头转卖给郊县修楼的工头。重庆的夏天是让人可怕的，正午白花花的阳光射在白花花的废楼上，让人晕乎乎的。可这群人干得火热，男男女女，老老少少，每天也就几十元的收入。“找钱才是硬道理”，有时他们还能顺便从废墟里敲出些钢筋等物变卖些钱。也许都会觉得这群人活得好累，可我发现他们活得很轻松、很洒脱，光着膀子干活，相互开着“荤”玩笑。和他们站在一起明显使我们不自然，不协调。当今许多作品都在表现民工劳动的场景，反映他们的辛酸生活，突显人道主义的光芒，而似乎少了一些真正、完整记录这群人的作品，他们同样快乐生活、同样喝酒高歌。其实在这群人心里善、恶、美、丑都不重要，找到钱才重要、才和谐。
2007.8
近段时间报纸上、电视里都在讲猪肉涨价了，今天便去了磁器口菜市场，在肉架前发现了一个满脸胡须的壮汉，全身好像都散发着猪油的光芒，形象很好，抓住机会拍几张照片。他也发现我的举动，于是抓起肉案上的一块肉走上前来，爽快地让我拍照，仿佛在炫耀卖肉生意的火爆。环顾菜场，嘈杂、繁忙中透着生活的希望，每个人都不停地吆喝着，好象赚了不少钱。
回到工作室，便很快整了几张色彩，构思了几幅杀猪、买肉的图，只想记录下物价的涨浮在老百姓生活中的重要性，“每天有肉吃多好啊！”。
2007.9
多年的学院教育让自己养成了画“好”画的习惯。在对民工的表现中很想画些“坏”画，但对造型、色彩、笔触、肌理的兴趣，使自己似乎不自觉地圈定在学院的一些规则中，每当整完一幅画就告戒自己要“突破”。也许是不愿放弃让自己炫耀的技艺，作画者都希望自己有“潇洒”、“帅气”的技艺在画布上肆意地炫耀，而这正是影响作品张力的重要因素。画家们都需要“放弃”和“突破”，都明白这个道理，而做到很难。把握好技艺与作品的关系，需要漫长的时间。
画了《挑砖》系列作品后发现没有背景很好，很干净，画面的注意点全在民工本身了，肌肉的色彩，衣裤的表现比较自由了，人物表情隐退了。但还需要在边缘钱处理上的突破，紧张与松动的关系，不能仅体现在笔触和肌理中。
最近发现把民工放在一个未名的背景中很好，启发于那天几个棒棒工帮我抬工作台。他们在画室的墙上发现了自己和熟人的形象，一下子从帮我做活的身份中解放出来，大声地在画室里谈论墙上画面里的熟人。我一下发现本来不属于他们的地方，因为某一原因一下子变成了他们的地盘，放肆地争论画中的优缺点，以及什么地方没画“像”，并向我真诚的建议着。干活的事情很快在争论中结束，他们中有人还主动要求我画下他，并留了电话。这时我发现环境不重要，人本身很重要，反差很大的场景或许会突现出民工的真正形象。
2007.11
画室随想
每天走进画室，近视自己的环境，这熟悉的一切使我沉于愉悦。面对画布，产生太多的激动，从一个笔触到另一个笔触，不断地体察、提示，还有幻想。在映象的背后又有一种生生不息的深刻的时代景象。这种动力驱使我去把握、去挖掘。那些看似平淡的景象其实就是令我们冲动与兴奋的爆发点，生活本身就是可能性和想象力的乐园，从古至今，不管是直接或间接，凡是能被感知的一切，都被艺术家所重释。
当我开始关注这群流连在都市边缘的人们，他们执著地、玩命地想挤进这个拥挤不堪的城市，梦想成为其中一员。农村青年带着对城市文明的索求，憧憬又失落，渴望又茫然……把自己美丽动人的青春献给了城市的“现代化”，而他们却生活得很边缘，很辛劳，在这里他们分离、重组、发展、转化……
好像这一切都是命中注定的，对命运抗争，追求美好生活的愿望都似乎明明白白地写在他们困顿的脸上。
农民工们善良、纯朴及困惑，他们的感情世界与劳动场景使我深刻地感到某种力量。关注他们的生存状态，记录下这群建设者的生活，希望传达出经得起推敲的情感，刻意从残破中发掘出美和爱，用淋漓、酣畅的笔触来表现他们灵魂的印记。我想最重要的是描画出“真实”的景象，作品的魅力更加依靠感情表达得真挚、细致与深刻来取得。在感情表达前面，其他都应退到次要位置，运用较单纯有力的构图，动人、淋漓的用笔，使作品营造出异样的氛围，显现出盎然生机，象征性地展现了农民工对未来生活的追求，同时又显得有些迷惘。
2005年3月
课堂体会
近段时间在大学城上素描课，为学生示范时，突然更加关注对象的细节了，想尽力多用一些“画”的方式，进行局部的描绘模特儿的表情，表现其实也是自己主观的表现，总是想寻求一些异样的视觉效果来传达自己的认识。自己的试验也能带动学生的试验。我还是更喜欢绘画的手工特性，色粉在纸上涂擦出丰富又轻松的效果，而细节的充分刻画更能加强画面的凝重感和丰富性。
2007.6
素描的魅力在于可以让我们不断的变化思维，它可以是技法的尝试，也可以是片断的记录。用最单纯的方式叙述自己的想法。在教学时通过自己的尝试和同学共同分享素描带来的快乐和痛苦，解决问题是最为根本的。尽可能让学生不用一种方式进行素描，当问题出现时多变换角度来思考。不要为了某种赏心悦目的技法而放弃自己的真实感受。素描的练习就是我们眼、手、脑的和谐一致的练习。
2008.3
具象绘画技能训练作为美术院校基础教学已经很长时间。相关此类课程的设置几乎等同于素描造型能力的培养和训练。从写实绘画的形成起，写实素描的研习就始终与“具象”和“准确”相依相伴，写实“基本功”是否扎实似乎也与具象和准确的技能高低息息相关。写实素描逐渐形成了相应严格和科学的理论和体系。从院校的课程设置和教材的编写，写实素描已成为我们从事艺术事业的必经之路。许多习画者也顺其自然地适应了这种安排好的学习模式来培养自己的造型意识和审美意识。
初学素描总是极力去画出具象的“外表”和“样子”，并通过以前“成功者”的“准确”标准来衡量和判断自己的“准确”，并延续下去。但在“成功者”的“准确”阴影下，许多人变成了平庸的技能工，无法发挥其独特的创作潜力。我们应当与“成功者”相互分享其“准确”，通过自己勤奋地探索，真正感悟到由“基本功”转化为“准确”的过程。一味地讲求“基本功”难免会失去更为丰富的准确性，写实素描不仅仅是单一的外部形态的具象和准确，应是作画者自己心迹的“准确”感悟，不再是模仿和再现。
过去“成功者”的准确、当今的文化思潮以及许多流行元素都会深深地影响我们的心理。面对纷繁复杂的表象，去真正学习具象的传统和感悟准确的当代。在素描中尽可能地运用各种材料媒介，不要局限于单一的黑白 “素描”，了解写实素描的多样性，大胆地尝试自我心中的“准确”来满足自我的需求，寻求具有鲜明个性的“具象”与“准确”。
写于磁器口画室
Understanding of Creation
Chongqing has been witnessing great changes in recent years, which can be reflected on the ever-changing maps of this city. Buildings under construction or demolition are seen everywhere. Among the ruins of those buildings, a group of peasant workers clean and classify the bricks, floor slabs, doors and windows every day before they resell them to the foremen who are restoring buildings in the suburbs. Summer in Chongqing is appalling. At noon, the killing sunshine reflected upon the ruins makes people sick. This group of people, however, males and females, the old and the young, are always working in high spirit so that they could earn a few tens everyday. To them, “making money is an absolute principle”, and sometimes they can find out some steel bars to earn a little more. People may assume that they are leading a hard life. I, on the other hand, find them living in comfort and ease — working bareback and making fun of each other. Standing with them, we will appear to be unnatural. Many works today concentrate on the presentation of the peasant workers’ hard work and bitter life with sympathy out of humanitarianism, while works genuinely and completely recording all the aspects of their life seem to be scarce. Actually they are also living happily, singing and drinking. In fact, in their hearts, good and evil, beauty and ugliness are none of their business; making money is their priority and the key to harmony.
2007．8
August, 2007
The issue of the increasing price of pork is everywhere on newspapers and televisions recently. I went to Ciqikou market today and spotted a strong man with mustache, glowing all over. His good image caught my attention and I took the chance to take a few pictures of him. Noticing my action, he grabbed a piece of meat on the block, walked to me, and posed for me to take more pictures of him as if he was showing off his prosperous business. I looked around and sensed a hope for life hidden under the hustle and bustle; everyone was shouting vigorously as if they had earned a lot.
After getting back to my studio, I quickly painted some colored paintings and conceived some paintings on pig killing and purchasing, recording the importance of the price fluctuations to the civilians. “What bliss to eat meat everyday!”
September, 2007
After receiving many years of college education, I have formed a habit of creating “good” paintings. In expressing the peasant workers, I prefer to paint something looking “bad”, but I am confined in some college rules by my interests in modeling, color, stroke and texture. Every time I’ve completed a new painting, I would warn myself to “break through”. The reluctance to give up showing off my “flexible” and “handsome” skills on canvas has become a crucial factor influencing the intensity of my works. All of the painters are aware of the need to “give up” and “break through” while only a few can manage to do this. It takes a long time to properly handle the relationship between the skills and the works themselves.
After completing the series “Tiao Zhuan (carrying bricks)”, I’ve found that paintings with no background look nice and clean, leaving the workers themselves the only focus. The color of the muscles and the clothes are executed with more freedom, while the facial expressions have receded. However, a breakthrough on the execution of border lines is expected, because the relationship between tensity and looseness shall not be only presented in strokes and textures.
I’ve found it a good idea to put the peasant workers into an unclear background recently, which was inspired by the other day when several “bangbangs” (peasant workers in Chongqing) helped me with the work table. When they found themselves and others they knew on the walls of my studio, they immediately forgot that they were working for me and started to talk about the figures on my walls loudly. It suddenly occurred to me that a place they had not belonged in before was turned into their territory out of some unknown reason. They argued about the merits and defects of my paintings freely, pointed out the details that they were not satisfied with, and made sincere suggestions to me. The working stuff soon came to an end in the argument. Some of them even asked me to paint them down and left me their phone numbers. At that time, I came to realize that it doesn’t matter where you are; it does matter who you are. Backgrounds with sharp contrasts may make the real images of peasant workers stand out.
November, 2007
Random Thoughts in My Studio
Everyday when I enter my studio and look around, all these familiar things fill me with joy. As I face the canvas, so many sparkles flash through my mind that I keep observing, recalling and imagining from one stroke to the next. Behind the image lies a non-stopping and profound scene of this time, which prompts me to grasp, to exploit more. Those seemingly bland scenes are exactly our mine of impulse and excitement. Life itself is a heaven full of possibilities and imagination. From the past to the present, all that can be perceived have been reinterpreted, directly or indirectly, by the artists.
When I started to pay my attention on this group of people wandering at the edge of the city, they were making every effort trying to have a seat in this over-crowded city to become a member of it. Bearing a pursuit of urban civilization mixed with feelings of hope, sorrow, eager and perplexity, the rural youth devote their beautiful youth to the urban “modernization”, while in return, they live an edgy life, being parted and reunited, developing and changing in this place...
As if all of this is predestined to happen. Their fight against their destiny and their hope for a better life are both clearly written on their faces.
The peasant workers’ good will, simplicity and perplexity, their feelings and their working conditions make me feel a strong power. I’ve tried to pay close attention to their living state, recording their life to convey a convincing emotion and purposefully find love and beauty from dilapidation. Passionate and forceful strokes are used to represent their spirit. To me, the most important thing is to depict the “real” scenes so that the glamour of my works is achieved through the sincere, detailed and profound expression of feelings. All the other factors recede behind the expression of feelings. Relatively simple and strong compositions and touching strokes are used to create a fancy environment filled with vigor, symbolically representing the pursuit of the peasant workers’ future life with a sense of perplexity.
March, 2005
Experiences in Class
I’ve been giving sketch lessons in the university town recently. When demonstrating for the students, I find myself paying more attention to the details of an object, trying to “paint” more to depict the model’s expressions. Expressions are in fact subjective expressions of my own, while I’ve always tried to seek for some absurd visual effects to express my understandings, and my experiments are also driving my students to do some experiments themselves. I still prefer the traditional characteristic of painting created by hand — rich and relaxing effects are made on the paper by toners, and a painstaking depiction of details enhances the weight and the richness of the picture.
June, 2007
The charm of sketching lies in that it enables us to change our way of thinking; it can be an experiment on skills or a record of fragments, which is a simplest attempt to express our own thoughts. In class, it’s fundamental to share with the students the joys and sorrows brought about by sketching during our experiments. Students should learn to sketch in as many ways as possible and learn to think form different angles when problems arise. They shall not give up their true feelings for the sake of some pleasing skills. Sketching is all about the training of a harmonious coordination of our eyes, hands and brain.
March, 2008
The training of concrete painting skills has been part of the basic teaching of art colleges for quite a long time. The relevant courses are almost equal to the cultivation and training of the sketch modeling abilities. From the very beginning of the rise of concrete painting, the training and research of concrete sketching have been closely related to “concrete image” and “accuracy”. Whether the “basic skills” of concrete painting are solid is almost dependent on the skills to achieve concrete image and accuracy. A strict and scientific theoretical system of concrete sketching has been gradually formed. From the course designs to the material developments, concrete sketching has become the gate to our course of art. Many painters have also adapted themselves to this arranged learning mode to cultivate their modeling and aesthetic consciousness.
Beginners, when learning sketching, always try to paint out the concrete “appearance” and “image” and judge their works against those “successful” models of “accuracy”, and they tend to do this continuously. However, under the shadow of the “successful accuracy”, many just become common craftsmen, unable to exploit their own creative potentials. We shall share the “accuracy” with those “successful” painters and try to understand, by ourselves, the process from “basic skills” to “accuracy” through hard exploration. The pure pursuit of “basic skills” may cause the loss of a more profound accuracy. Concrete sketching is not only about the concrete image and accuracy of the external morphology, but is more of an “accurate” understanding of the painter’s own feelings; it is not a kind of simple imitation or reproduction either.
The “successful” accuracy of the past, the thoughts of modern culture, and many popular elements will affect our thoughts deeply. When faced with the complex image, we should try to learn the tradition of concrete image and feel the accuracy of modern days at the same time. Apply as many materials as possible to sketching, and do not confine it to the simple black and white form. Try to grasp the diversity of concrete sketching and boldly express the “accuracy” in your heart to satisfy yourself, looking for an outstanding individuality in “concrete image” and “accuracy”.
by Zhao Xiaodong, in Ciqikou Studio
【编辑：霍春常】
