「黄金档-上档」当代水墨艺术家联展 前言

文：魏祥奇

新工笔和新水墨的概念生成和发展十多年来，展现出蓬勃的活力，今天已然成为青年水墨艺术家不得不面对的创作语境。当然，笼统地用新工笔和新水墨来概括这些新创作也显得过于简单，并不能描述出他们在创作意识和创作观念上的新作为。耐人寻味的是，新工笔和新水墨为什么会被广为接受？以至于启发、塑造，同时也遮蔽着今天青年一代创作者的思想形态。从这个意义上来说，新工笔和新水墨并不完全是一个既定的学理性的概念，还仍然是一个正在建构中、鲜活的创作方向。

显而易见的是，新工笔和新水墨是新世纪中国画创作的新表现，相对于20世纪中国画变革秉持写实主义语言和现实主义观念，相较于改革开放新时期主张表现性和观念性的现代水墨和实验水墨，其更为关注图像的隐喻性和象征性。新工笔和新水墨创作者在创作意识上有一种强烈的去历史性、去宏大叙事的特征，他们更多描绘一种晦涩的、莫可名状的视觉经验，这也使他们在创作上趋于文学化的意味。

纵览性的看，尽管我们还是很容易就能发现展览中的作品，有新工笔和新水墨创作业已形成的层垒式的图式，但这并不妨碍他们在创作上有新见地。艺术创作是一个持续性的过程，每位创作者的秉性不同，他们在创作主题和母题上的差异也较为鲜明，在更长的一个时间维度上看，彼此之间必然相去甚远。但他们就像大树的枝桠，向着不同的方向伸展，开枝散叶，都在寻找自己的生长空间，但又相互照应，相映成辉。

金秋九月，是收获希望的时节。春华秋实，青年水墨艺术家们今天播下的是理想的种子，待明日，他们会翻开中国水墨艺术发展史的新篇，收获金灿灿的未来。苟日新，日日新，又日新，未来可期！

The foreword of the「Prime Time Show - First Half 」

by Wei Xiangqi

The concepts of new elaborate painting and new ink painting have been created and developed for more than ten years and demonstrated thriving vitality, which builds a cementing context for newly-bud artists’ practice. Nevertheless, such vague and simple terms can not fully reflect some of their ground-breaking attempts regarding ideology and creative concepts. And the most intriguing question is why the concepts are widely accepted to inspire, form and also shield the thought patterns of today’s young artists. In that sense, the new elaborate painting and new ink painting are still forming extremely vibrant creative alternatives instead of entirely determined theoretical concepts.

Notably, new elaborate paintings and new ink paintings are original representations of traditional Chinese painting. Compared with the adherence to realistic language and concept during the transformation of traditional Chinese painting in the 20th century and the emphasis on expressiveness and concept of the modern and experimental ink painting during the reform and opening-up, they are more inclined to focus on the metaphor and symbolism of the image. These artists strongly intend to disassociate from historical significance and grand narratives; they preferably depict an obscure and subtle visual experience that gives their works a rare literal appeal.

Generally, although the typical layered narration cemented by new elaborate painting and new ink painting still can be easily spotted, it won’t obstruct their exploration for new expressions. The creative practice is a consistent process; judging from artists’ different talents, the subjects they chose vary distinctively, hence in a longer perspective, they shall develop quite the opposite style. However, like twigs and branches of a tree, they grow and stretch in different directions to take up their own spaces, while echoing and resonating with each other.

The golden September is a season for harvest and hope. As the spring flowers yield fruits in autumn, today the younger generation of ink artists sowing the seeds of their ideals will open a new chapter in the history of Chinese ink art and reap a golden future. If you can improve yourself in a day, do so each day, forever building on improvement, and the future is promising!