Li Xiaowei enhanced figurative painting for a restoration of humanism in this contemporary epoch

LEE Kwun-leung VincentArt Officer & Adolescent Painter

Art Of Nature International Company Limited

There’s no doubt to comment that, the fine art circuit of Mainland China is experiencing an unprecedented and prestigious level of “Renaissance” in the 21st century. Keeping abreast with the mission of Chinese Government in terms of striving for global recognition on “Confucian-Buddhist-Taoist” aesthetic ideologies, the fine art academies in various provinces put their prior emphasis on trainning adolescents with solid ability in creating figurative paintings with appropriate but “slightly innovative” anatomical structures. The priviledged class in Chinese art market estimates that, an honest, egocentric and empathetic representation of humanistic scenes, being persisted by contemporary Chinese artists in Beijing 798 Art District, is the most effective mean for the Asian, European and American countries to comprehend how the Chinese majority stress “broadened horizon” (bo xue 博學), “evaluation” (shen wen審問), “re-consideration” (shen shi 審視), “identification” (ming bian 明辨) and “succession” (du xing 篤行) as their wholesome tradition in both academic and secular pursuit.

The Art Of Nature International Company Limited ( 天趣國際藝術 ) has just initiated a contemporary art saloon in MSC Building (萬城集團大廈) at Fuzhou Tongpan Software Park (福州銅盤軟件園). It has been formally acknowledged by Mr. Zhang Xinjian (張新建司長), Senior Officer of PRC Cultural Bureau, as a historically “first-ever” saloon within the Fujianese art circuit that opens for cross-strait artists to demonstrate their unique schools of creative thoughts. In the most updated exhibition for the establishment of this contemporary art saloon, the curator invited Li Xiaowei (李曉偉) to present widespread art lovers with different thematic and stylistic approaches in figurative painting. Li Xiaowei, with a Fujianese origin and a spiritual connection with the marine culture, is much sensitive with the impulses from both our media-oriented society and our “hierarchy-freed” visual culture caused by an ever-globalizing trend in aesthetic methodology. Li hopes to express how human-beings are subconsciously affected by the conventional episodes in televisions, films, magazines and advertisements, as we’ve unnoticeably developed our unique cored values with prior emphasis on pursuing popular entertainments. The way that the younger generation fosters literary inspirations, with no doubt, also originates from such approach of sedimentation in observational and sensational experiences.

Li Xiaowei, a Professor from the Academy of Fine Arts at the Fujian Normal University, stresses that the selection of concepts, philosophies, ideologies and images for his figurative paintings is subjected to his “sentimental” conditions. His avocation positively corresponds with what Xu Jiang (許江), Dean of China Academy of Fine Arts, stated in a column interview conducted by

“People Illustration Post” (人民畫報 ) – “To uphold spiritual expressions based on the norm of traditional fine arts, so as to pursue a genuine analysis on our innermost qualities which help us prevent from getting lost in visual mysteries being filled with over-symbolic and superficial contexts”. Li Xiaowei does a very impressive job in transcending the estimation of “culturally lacked” majority and developing his own language of empathy to glorify a set of immortal values, which might cause some sorts of conflicts with either the mechanical or the utilitarian norms in this contemporary epoch with infrastructural rewards as priorest concern. He adored “theory-freed” liberty as an important criterion for artists to create some narrative iconographies that fulfill the pleasance of both creators themselves and the corresponding audiences.

An oil painting called “The Moment For Us To Be On The Tree Branches” (樹上時光), created by Li Xiaowei and currently exhibited in Art Of Nature International Saloon, tells the art circuit that, the imaginative realm that a contemporary artist composes can be adopted as “medical complements” to help human-beings separate from the burden of rational thinking and peer competitions. The characters being portrayed can be somebody in which both the artist and the audiences could not either “search for” or “contact with” in this non-altruistic economic world. Li Xiaowei paid a great attribute to reminisce the happiest moment in which people from his same generation could gather in a natural place and share their sincerest messages without fearing for any kinds of fragility in their friendships. The facial structures of the three characters unveiled a particular extent of childhoodness, for their less dependence on materialistic life to obtain spiritual gratifications. Their skins were expressed with “ecological colours”, which shared much similarity with the visual and textural noumenon of those old trees that had encountered with lots of hydraulic erosions from breezes.

“The Night Shanghai” (夜上海) is another piece that proves Li Xiaowei’s thanksgiving mind on the past metropolitanists who contributed to the prosperity of human life by persisting with the art of classical film productions. From the “partly artificial” gestures of that female character with elegant brouse, it can be seen that Li Xiaowei attempted to re-fabricate a bunch of fragmented memories as a way to reminisce the enlightened mode of intellectual culture during the Republican Era. This time, Li expressed the receptionist lady in cinema with a modern “chairoscuro” effect similar to the daydreaming features of Surrealistic painting. The smile of that receptionist lady was a bit enigmatic, but she seemed to be very grateful with Shanghai as this city provided the female class with tremendous opportunities to enhance their social status despite of the patriarchical restrictions. In fact, Li Xiaowei painted that receptionist lady as heavily varnished by extravagant cosmetics and hair-dressing accessories. This was much attributed to Li’s impression on how a perfect feministic model in Republican Era looked like – having both a presentable grooming in social gatherings and a courteous attitude for being submissive with their condition as helpful housewives. Li Xiaowei seemingly digested a wide range of visual contexts from those old romantic movies which talked about how the Shanghaiese ladies rendered their long-lasting relationship with their beloved companions. Thus, it can be said that a particular kind of “vital spirits” and “eagerness” in Li Xiaowei’s creative psychology was vividly expressed through a narrative mean of figurative painting, which was much based on Li’s subjective

admiration on those ladies with initiatives to strive for upward social mobility.

To Li Xiaowei’s mind, a classical mode of Realism is no longer the absolute standard for an artist to succeed in the field of figurative painting. He attempts to convey his characters with exaggerative, loosened and humored visions, whereas he does not mind that his painting approach is commented as “illustrative”. As Mr. John Li Tung-keung (李東強) reiterated in his life-drawing education during his capacity as an instructor in CUHK Department of Fine Arts, a sort of “interesting temperaments” (qu wei, 趣味 ) should be vividly reserved while searching for a harmonious description of soft organs with exceptional emphasis on warm luminance. In fact, it cannot be denied that, the uneven brushstrokes and contours experienced in the humanistic characters by Li Xiaowei and other contemporary Chinese artists reflect their feelings of instability towards the disordered social circumstances after surpassing the epoch with an irresistable dependence on financial prosperity. Li Xiaowei hopes to present such “insane” with a rather optimistic and moderate perspective, thus audiences seemingly perceive that his characters are thinking about complicated philosophical issues and transcending the mankind level of comprehension.

During “History & Art – The Hong Kong Exhibition of the National Project of Artwork on Key Historic Themes” at Hong Kong Exhibition Centre from 18 December 2010 to 3 January 2011, scholars and significant representatives in Chinese art circuit, who participated in the discussion forum as guest-speakers, commonly agreed that figurative painting, no matter for what sort of style being applied, is the most precious asset to record how a particular group of racial people analyzed both the prospect for the growth of their Civilization and the ever-transforming social or institutional norms in their epoch. The variations from characters’ facial features, as well as humans’ interactions with the surrounding landscapes or substances, convey inspiring metaphors that help art lovers to comprehend what sort of “ideologies”, “principles”, “ideals”, “virtues” and “righteousness” both an artist and his peers tends to pursue. Li Xiaowei’s persistence on figurative painting is never disordered by any kinds of “nihilistic” trends in the post-contemporary art circuit, as he stresses a pragmatic goal of presenting art lovers with plastic skills and concreted forms that helped prevent them from perceiving any under-modulated sense of indifferences. Li Xiaowei’s paintings could, in fact, provide framework for the adolescent art talents in China to be more confident with their ability in making their figurative paintings with every success by slightly merging their personalities with their portrait representations and bringing innovative effects for the corresponding anatomical compositions.

“The Moment For Us To Be On The Tree Branches” (樹上時光), Li Xiaowei (李曉偉), 150 x 130 cm, Oil on Canvas

“The Night Shanghai” (夜上海), Li Xiaowei (李曉偉), 3 x 2 m, Oil on Canvas