从动物乐园到“苦涩”童年
——曾建勇童话世界中的现实玩味
文／王静
每个大人都曾经是个孩子，都曾沉浸童话梦想连篇，当每个孩子在似梦似醒中个子长高，在跌跌撞撞中开始扮演大人应该有的成熟稳重，孩子便长成了大人。小时候的幻想好似吹大的泡泡般越变越薄，越漂越远，忽得一下在眼前消失了。但好在泡泡总归存在过，谁都不会真的忘记它曾带给孩时的美好记忆，只是长大世故的我们不再轻易去回忆。好在有人在变成大人若干年后，仍坚守着孩童时“胡思乱想”的那份勤奋，用心勾画着埋葬在大人们心中羞于表露的天真和随意，其实，表达本身就是一种能力。
看曾建勇的画，就能给人这样一种纯净。而在纯净的背后，曾建勇其实一直借助他创造的主角向现实表达和窥视，并用一种矫捷和戏虐搭建起感染观众的情境。
随着时间的推移和技术可能的无限丰富，艺术的当代进程已令艺术家摆脱了形式和媒材的囹囿，传统的绘画语言正在被消解，那些语言无法言说的东西正在被新的语言方式说出来。曾建勇在创作中，亦没有选择顽固地恪守在传统艺术的样式中，而是选择用传统的材料语言激发新鲜的可能性，利用皮纸的天然纹理，以及近似水墨的材料特性来完成对画面的自然驾驭，甚至刻意为之的色斑与污渍都更好的激发了艺术家对水墨这一材料的玩味。从内容上而言，曾建勇的作品中总能渗透出一种疏离和冷静，不论是动物还是人，总在静态的冷漠气氛下冷眼旁观，而曾建勇创造的形象又总是天真烂漫童趣十足。如果要探究曾建勇这份疏离于现实的天真和对现实的真切关照从何而来，天性和内心应该是最终的指向，天性使他以独立的姿态站在真实和喧嚣的边缘，时时对社会变迁、文化生态以及个人的境遇发出质疑与批判性的思考，在一正一反的比照下勾动人心中敏感的神经。
在曾建勇营造的童话世界里，没有对现实的出走和壁垒，反而常常透出对人的世界的映照和自审，强调想象力对现实世界的渗透，深邃得耐人寻味，动物乐园中的主角们仿若具有了人的神态和思绪，这在曾建勇稍早一些名为“闲着”的系列作品中最早显露出了端倪。这部分作品的主要形象都是沾染着人类性格的宠物狗，艺术家刻意营造了许多这样的镜头：表情严肃的宠物狗们端坐于画面中，貌似认真而富于耐心的充当他作品的模特，游离的眼神中，些许能端详出各自怀有的心事，无所事事、神情凝滞，抑或百无聊赖、心不在焉，再或者神色肃然、若有所思…… 看着动物们佯装的严肃表情，总让人忍不住思考他们的自信坚定从何而来？而我更愿意相信，画面是曾建勇洞察世界的一双眼睛，淡然注视着这个丰富多变的世界。
在《大风天》和《大晴天》两幅作品中，曾建勇更加将童话的神奇曼妙展现无遗。零乱和无序虽则绝少会出现在成人的世界中，却毫无争议的被视为世界的初始，初始才是原态和本真。猫儿上房，狗儿撒尿，东倒西歪的家什物件，还有长了翅膀的鸟笼和绑着降落伞飞来飞去的猫咪，乱哄哄的一起出现却又似乎顺理成章。在这里，虚拟的童话世界源源不断流经艺术家精神世界中那些奇幻的感受微波，以及生活中体验的况味，恍惚的抒写，自由联想，奇异的效果都一并发挥了作用。至此，我们不妨将曾建勇的童话世界理解为一种“空观”，一种超验的观看，一种对于混沌的归返，一种精神的浪漫。
2007年，曾建勇似乎在试图从完全虚拟的梦幻世界中向现实靠近，他的最新作品也更清晰的从内心走向了外部具体，但这并非决绝的走向现实，因为曾建勇最为舒畅和自由的表达，仍来源于他的心丝细密和想象带来的愉悦感受。应该说，在新的作品中，曾建勇开始编织并且向我们讲述另一个让人感到似曾相识而又言语不清的故事，而这次的叙事手法带有了更多“现实主义”的味道，那便是对“大队长”这个概念化名称的理想与现实的冲撞。
“大队长”想必是中国特有的，每个进入小学的懵懂孩童在成为少先队员后，便都有了成为大、中、小队长的可能，而最最风光无限的大队长，一定是一票不谙世事的小孩中最“优秀”的那个，大队长要集成绩优秀、尊敬师长、热爱同学等众多优良传统于一身，成为每个孩子小学时代可能实现抑或在心中默默奢望的一个理想。童话往往反观现实，或赞美生活的美好，或言指现实的流弊。在曾建勇最新的《大队长》这部分作品中，每个大队长都变成了脸上血丝斑斑的小男孩，带着一副与年龄极不相称的沧桑表情和因受惊而瞪大的眼睛，彻底颠覆了每个曾经戴过红领巾，对“大队长”既羡慕又关注的“小孩”们的记忆，只有每个睁大眼睛，充满惊恐表情的少年胳膊上的袖标，依稀存留着“大队长”的影子。孩子脖颈上佩戴的黑黑的领巾尤其悚人，原本令人艳羡的荣耀和被雨露滋润的幸福，因着黑色的领巾还有病态的表情，霎时间显得黯然失色。
曾建勇是一个有了８、９岁儿子却仍然热衷童话的快乐父亲，他自己说，正是因为儿子，才让他感觉到如今的小“大队长”们拥有的多数是天昏地暗的童年，小小年纪便扛起了大如山的压力，天真形象的轮廓下，孩子们的痛楚在现实中格外牵动人心，于是在老师、家长的期望、无休无止的功课和综合素质盛名下失去童年的孩子们，便成为曾建勇着意表达的主体。
令人高兴的是，曾建勇通过童话世界和现实的互相映照，找到了自己艺术上的表达方式，他笔下的“大队长”们，脸上流露的彷徨与局促，伤痕累累的疲惫深情是对现实的巨大震撼，同时也不禁让身处观看角色的读画者，对这些大头小孩由怜生爱。
From “paradise of animals” to “bitter childhood”
——Reality and fairy story in Zeng Jianyong’s art
Wen Jing
Each adult used to be a child, dreaming with fairy tales. When children grow up day by day, they begin to play the role of mature human. However, dreams of childhood fade away. Dreams have once exited anyway, leaving us sweet memory of our childhood. It just seems stupid and childish for us adults to recall them. However we are still lucky to have some artists who stick to their dreams and express them with innocence and diligence. In fact, expressing itself is a kind of ability.
Zeng Jianyong is one among them. With his characteristic images, Zeng’s paintings show us pureness and humor with which he tries to infect the audience.
With the continuous development of technology, contemporary artists are given new methods and abilities to break down traditional artistic bondages and to create new styles. Instead of being passively restricted to traditional styles, Zeng chose to create new possibilities by fully exploiting the natural grain of brown paper and by applying ink painting and even stain on paper. Animals and human beings on his paintings all look at the world with cold indifference, producing an atmosphere of distance and coolness. However meanwhile, the images are always cute and childlike. Such contradictive images implying the artist’s close attention to reality and his innocence are attributed to his nature that makes the artist by instinct independently think and question about society, culture and personal environment.
Zeng Jianyong didn’t hide himself in his fairy world from the reality but to reflect on the reak and to emphasize the influence of imagination towards real world. Animals on paintings always have human manner, the characteristic already shown up in his early works <free> series. The artist produced pet dogs with human appearance: the serious dogs in paintings sit as models; they look from eyes either bored, absent-minded or thoughtful. Why do these human-like dogs look so confident and steady? I believe that’s the artist’s eyes on paintings watching this changeable world.
In the paintings <strong wind> and <sunny day>, Zeng presented us more miraculous scenes of fairy tales. In the world of adults seldom exist chaos and mess that is out-of- doubt considered as original state of the world. Cats on the roof, pissing dogs, objects in mess, bird cage with wings and flying cats with parachute, all appear together in disorder but also in logic. Combining imaginary tales and inspiration from real life, I interpret the art of Zeng Jianyong as observation beyond experience, return back to original and romantic mental journeys.
In 2007, Zeng Jianyong seems to further approach realities from absolute fairyland and his new works lean towards more concrete images. But they are still far from absolute realities, because for the artist the joy of artistic creation still derives from inner feelings and imagination. In his new works, Zeng made up new stories meanwhile déjà vu by means of narrative to some extent. <the header> series combined the characteristics of imagination and realities.
The title “header”is peculiar to China. After becoming Young Pioneer, every schoolchild dreams to be a “header”and “the header” is only accorded to the most outstanding child who is praiseworthy of good with study, respecting teachers and parents, getting on well with others, etc. As fairy tales usually reflect realities from other angles either to sing a song of life or to expose social problems, the new <header>series is a mirror of realities as well. The headers in paintings are portrayed as little boys with bloodstain on face, adult-like expression and frightened eyes. Except for armband of “the header”, the artist produced totally opposite image to the one stays in people’s memory of those talented envied headers. The black scarves worn by the headers shock us most. Their scarves and abnormal state reveal the reverse side of honor and happiness.
Zeng Jianyong, father of an 8-year-old son is still attracted by fairy tales. As he said, from son he realizes those little kids who are bore with much pressure don’t really enjoy their childhood. They should have had much happiness, however under the great expectations from adults and endless homework, lovely kids are actually unhappy. Having sympathy for kids, Zeng chose them as main images of his painting. He also created a unique style of combining fairy tales and realities. Showing the feelings of lost and tired, the situation of headers on paintings shock the audience and also arouse our sympathy for these kids.
