Infinity by Mao Lizi

毛栗子，中国当代着名艺术家，七、八十年代中国星星画会的领衔人物，他改变了中国当代艺术的面貌，引领中国画坛脱离文化革命僵化的符号、走上自由绘画之路。毛栗子巡迴个展精选近年重要创作，甫结束中正纪念堂的个展，旋即至下一站亚洲艺术中心台北大直二馆展开「无限：毛栗子巡迴个展」。本展展现毛栗子近年的十几幅新作，他在绘画上表现得无拘无束，在偶然与自然、过程和结果相遇时保持其连贯性和完整性，并巧妙把握住了颜料在画布上类似于墨色的那种深与浅、多与少、动与静的尺度，在理性与感性、鬆弛与张力、控制和自由之间建构的诗境般的画面，流露出一种含蓄之美、诗意之美、运动之美、自然之美。

毛栗子于1980、1990年代即成为中国当代知名的前卫艺术家之一。因艺术家自我不断挑战个人创造性的「无限」，在2000年左右，他毅然放弃备受肯定的写实创作风格，用几年的时间去思考未来的创作方向。终于在2005年开始带给观众全新的感受，运用其深厚的写实创作底蕴，创作出令人惊歎的半抽象和抽象风格。他鲜明的个性语言和独特风格，反映了其对自然与抽象、诗意与暗喻的美学思考及表现。

绘画的简洁性是毛栗子作品最显着的特徵，画面形式以少胜多，表现出探之茫茫、索之淼淼的虚空感。有的画面处理的简洁、轻柔和优雅，有的画面则富有韵律的音乐感，有的画面则表现的是「虚实相生，无画处皆成妙境」。在绘画的细微之处，他从传统中国画和书法的美学中获得启示，将书法线条的解体和韵律融入抽象性中，将线条看作是抽象绘画的本质。毛栗子在作品的流动线条和随意泼洒之间处理得当，在省略与隐没、聚合与收敛、色晕与线条的拿捏中形成了出时现时隐，含蓄而韵律的形式，让人从中感悟到一种自然而诗境的抽象意象。

此外，毛栗子在创作中牢牢抓住抽象绘画的不确定性，因这种不确定性蕴涵了偶然性、神秘性、自然性和不可预知性，他才会在「否定」形象中不断发现新的可能性，并构成了抽象绘画的无限性。也因此，他在绘画中发现了某种毫无凋琢的「静」、「闲寂」的境界，是个人心灵安详的隐入，是个人经验的感悟。他更在视觉哲理上传达出「天地与我并生，而万物与我为一」的状态。

▼板刷Brush

Mao Lizi, renowned Chinese contemporary artists, is a founding member of “The Stars Group” in the 70’s and 80’s, which significantly influenced and shaped the Chinese contemporary art development. This artistic movement group has led Chinese painting away from Cultural Revolution signifier in pursuit of the freedom of creativity. The tour exhibition of Mao Lizi display some of his most important creations in recent years, and will carry forward the spectacle at Asia Art Center—Taipei ? “Infinity: Mao Lizi Tour Exhibition at Asia Art Center” right after his exhibition at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. This exhibition will present the artist’s new works, as his unrestrained paintings manage to maintain the integrity and coherence between accidental and natural,
process and result. He captures exquisitely the scale of pigment’s dark and light, rich and poor, dynamic and static forms on canvas that’s similar to Chinese ink on paper, illustrating the beauty of subtleness, poetic, and movement against the poetic scenery constructed between sense and sensibility, relaxation and tension, control and freedom.

Mao Lizi has become one of the most established Chinese contemporary artists since the 80’s and 90’s. Driven by the artist’s continuous effort to search for his personal “infinity” and push forward his performance, in 2000, he called a halt to “realistic” style and spent a few years pondering his prospective creative direction. In 2005, the artist brought to the art world a whole new visual impact, a series of stunning semi-abstract and abstract paintings are created with his decent realistic technique. The artist’s philosophical thoughts and manifestation on the interrelationship between natural and abstraction, poetic and metaphorical presentations thus reflect his distinctive personality and unique style.

The simplicity of painting is the most distinctive feature in Mao Lizi’s artworks. The composition conveys the idea that less is better than more, emphasizing the vastness of space and exploration among the void. In his paintings, some are simple, gentle, and elegant; some possess the rhythmic musicality, while some delineate the “reality and unreality grow out of each other, and the vacant is fine scenery”. Studying from the details of the painting, we may derive that Mao Lizi is deeply inspired by traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy. He incorporates the structure and rhythm of
calligraphy into abstractness—simple strokes are thus the essential quality of his abstract paintings. Mao Lizi properly manipulates the linear flow and casual spill, showing the status of being subtle yet rhythmic, implicit yet explicit. Between the omitted and submergence, aggregation and convergence, aurora and lines, the artist has intrigued viewers to realize a natural but abstract poetic imagery.

Furthermore, Mao Lizi’s artworks grasp the uncertainty of abstract paintings, and it is this uncertainty, which embodies the essence of contingency, mystique, natural, and unpredictability that the artist continues to find new possibilities that constitute the infinity in abstract paintings. Therefore, the artist has found, in paintings, an unembellished “tranquility” and “placid” realm—a retreat into personal serenity and personal experience. He even goes on to convey the idea of “the nature lives with me in symbiosis, and everything is with me as a whole”. This exhibition is organized by the
Asia Art Center, and we cordially invite you to enjoy Mao Lizi’s pursuit of abstract painting and aesthetics concept at our Taipei ? branch gallery at Dazhi.

▼殘荷Withered Lotus

▼板刷Brush

▼顏料管Tube

▼(left)花非花A Flower is Not a Flower (right) 刮刀Scraper

▼花非花A Flower is Not a Flower

▼花非花A Flower is Not a Flower

▼(left)抽象Abstraction (right)花非花A Flower is Not a Flower

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亚洲艺术中心
Asia Art Center

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