以物造物英文

Use objects to create object

Liu Libin
 
  Nowadays, the creative state of Qu Qianmei is related with her experiences with three events: a Tapies exhibition in Paris, works of Su Xiaobai in Beijing, and a tour of Tibet. How have these experiences inspired you? Tapies made her realize the value of screen material, Su Xiaobai made her realize the beauty of crafts, and the Tibet trip seemed to wash away her mundane state of mind in order to achieve a spiritual one.
   Compared with previous works, there is no “light” in recent creations of Qu. An “object” is presented plainly on the screen and reflects a style of quiet isolation. Qu separates “light” from “object” inquiry, and with the material properties of texture language, she engages material, form and texture in the picture in active self-expression, and seeks the meaning of its “footprint”. These statements will have different echoes in readers’ hearts as people have to face the understanding of the “object”.
   Qu Qianmei is against paying too much attention to the aesthetic. In her screen, special materials are elaborated and there is an emergence of symbols which are often detached from the order in readers’ minds, and this even presents the materiality of materials which remains a potential question for the audience. Just when you're about to find out the context of this game, factors don’t join things logically, then you have to start another assumption and build the logic again. This is a visual and thinking activity so that the works and audience seem to experience a subtle contradiction. Qu is against too much description and production in the screen and replaces an item with a material in a lasting image and in-depth data mining. This makes her work avant guard and mysterious at first sight, but upon reflection you will find in fact it has a simple message.
   The creations of Qu Qianmei are obviously inspired by Tapies. Tapies always upholds the work of both material and physical principles and declares: “the artist has   to show people that which exists beneath the surface of reality.”To reach the aim, Tapies broke the existing customary presentation of the material, so that physical materials show the world their own material, which made the object itself relevant, then the material achieves a special state. Although Qu does experiment under the influence of Tapies, the difference is that her pictures are more refined and made more rational. Perhaps this is related to her experiences. Qu was trained in traditional Chinese painting in Rui An, later went to France and made Chinese Paintings and had a business in the apparel industry and financial industry at the same time with good results. Qu’s personal qualities make her good at organization and production. This is reminiscent of Su Xiaobai’s work which advocates a returnable process.
   Everyone considers art rushing from the concept to significance but Su Xiaobai chooses to think differently, to create something based on “process”, using a personal and more independent language. Su’s in-depth thoughts contain his “craft” of personal experiences and feeling. The “craft” becomes a complex process of a personal production in Qu. Every piece made by Qu has to go through dozens of procedures, a collection of raw materials, then grinding, use of superior adhesives, creation of collages, and then assembly. A complex working procedure along with an amazing workload needs careful co-ordination in order to achieve accurate timing. In fact, an artist makes a work from nothing to a work of art, a production occupied by most anxious space. When the production and presentation are proved invalid, how does the total meaning remain? Therefore, regression in handicraft is also a question and situation. Although her work does not have any narrative, the hand has been relying on self-expression.
   She built a bridge between“ object”and “ heart”about the hand experience of “object” and its mental perception. If we say that the Tapies exhibition in Paris along with the works of Su Xiaobai in Beijing made Qu realize the importance of “object”and “hand”，then the subsequent trip to Tibet seems to have opened the door of Qu’s heart. Once the heart opened, everything in Lhasa became the incentive for her new creations.
   You can see Qu in the “pure land” of desire and enthusiasm in daily statements. There is a sentence in the moive of “Hoh Xili”, "Those who have long heads, their faces and hands are very dirty, but their hearts are particularly clean." When experiencing real life situations and learning from them, people will cherish the hope and yearn. I’m not sure what the relationship is between Qu’s work and Tibet, but it is clear that these works reveal from the quiet and isolation shows that the artist realized or actually had some kind of transcendental experience. “Living in other places” is often the artists journey themselves to their own subtle conscious daily lives and once discovered that there is another place in his heart, there will be another artist. Artist who can exist between “here” and “there” will be able to dwell on the creativity gained in the heart journey.
   Now Qu’s access to the creation of the outbreak period, the incentive process from “object” to “heart” made the use of the object to that of create an object become possible. In these paintings the materials she used are no longer subservient to the objects depicted, they are themselves! Regardless of clay, paint, wood they are all in one screen used to highlight itself. Qu didn’t give them a single characteristic or  definition, she explores their nature and allows us to become the discoverers. Her "creatures," also are not a simple picture, but a material world. Such a world formed a resonance in her heart, while the realization of the directions is evolved from the Su Xiaobai crafts of course tempered by many years of contact with the outside world and affected by a specific moment with supernatural powers ( perhaps as a result of the Tibet influence).
    Amazed about Qu’s creation of her explosive work, I find too many flattering words are only frivolity and shallowness when addressing her works. Her past life experiences, her artistic processes, her recent and past experimentation with pulling off and trying again regardless of the terms of her creation, or for the audience like you and me, all contribute to the overall calming effect and inspire our meditations on her visions of life inspirations. In the present, in promoting Chinese abstract art, Qu’s thought process and creative style all can be called amazing. Apart from surprise, she also contributes beautiful quiet efforts to the modern ideas of Chinese abstract art.