王南飛作品所表現(xiàn)的題材是當代中國的城市生活，基本上可以分為相對隱私化的室內(nèi)生活和城市街道的公共生活兩大類。這兩類題材，其實也是今日許多藝術(shù)家關(guān)注城 市化進程的主要對象。有趣的是，作為一位年輕的女性，她的城市生活的藝術(shù)表現(xiàn)，并沒有許多她的同類的作品中所每每出現(xiàn)的花花草草，也沒有什么漫無邊際的美 妙幻想，反倒是直接關(guān)注城市生活人與人的相互關(guān)系，無論它是私密化的還是公開化的。也就是說，作為一位女性，她并沒有在創(chuàng)作中為自己編造一個充滿幻想的浪 漫色彩的神秘園，使自己耽迷于其中而獨自哀憐，反倒是讓自己的視點超越于女性自我的局限性，從一個客觀的角度來觀察和表現(xiàn)當代中國城市生活的日常景象。

這 個客觀的角度當然不是照相式的簡單再現(xiàn)和復(fù)寫，而是一種異在于城市景觀之外，卻又能夠揭示和捕捉它的種種流弊的立場。這種立場決定了她的客觀實際上是一種 主動的干預(yù)，是用視覺語言的方式來呈現(xiàn)當代城市變化中的人與人的關(guān)系的某種異樣性。她對城市公共空間的生活場景的反映，主要集中在溝通城市各個區(qū)域之間的 交通干道上。與其說她是在描繪這些街道的華麗和馬路的寬廣本身，毋寧說她是在刻畫發(fā)生在這些公共空間中的種種人間鬧劇，那些過路者、談情說愛者、閑蕩者、 看熱鬧者，還有偷情做愛者，等等，等等，都是光天化日之下城市里人們生動寫照，它們構(gòu)成了每日充斥著城市生活的內(nèi)容。也許它們并不是同時發(fā)生的，但藝術(shù)家 卻在同一個畫面里并置并且強化這些事件，而為了表達出這些事件的復(fù)雜和無序狀態(tài)，人物形象的比例大小和光影投射的方向角度，都有意識地表現(xiàn)出不同和差異。

       這 種場景之間和人物之間的混同和共生，實際上是中國當代農(nóng)村城市化和城市都市化進程中不可避免的難題，失地農(nóng)民和下崗職工，退休老人和無業(yè)青年，老板和二 奶，警察與罪犯，所有的人都在城市的空間里相互碰撞、追逐，彼此面面相覷，卻猶如陌路人。畫面上經(jīng)常出現(xiàn)的汽車扎堆相會和人群相互觀望的場面，似乎暗示著 人們某種焦躁不安和渴望奇跡發(fā)生的心理情緒。王南飛把自己置于街道和馬路的上空，俯視這里已經(jīng)發(fā)生和即將發(fā)生的一切，她異在于眼前的一切，同時又與眼前的 一切有著千絲萬縷的聯(lián)系和瓜葛，因為這是她自己不得不生活于其中的環(huán)境。

與 室外街面上的各色人等混雜交錯的場面相比，室內(nèi)生活也并非有條不紊，酒桌旁、泳池里、澡盆邊和果樹下，到處都充滿了欲望的誘惑。在這樣的室內(nèi)空間里，似乎 欲望的宣泄和表露遠外的公共空間來得直接和大膽，惟有那桃花樹下窗臺上品茗談天的一對男子，才流露出城市生活難得的自在和逍遙。如果仔細留意的話， 王南飛對待城市公共空間和私密空間，在表現(xiàn)材料上是不同的：前者更多地是以平面油畫的媒介形式來體現(xiàn)的，而后者則是選擇了帶有裝置和雕塑意味的著色木雕和 畫框相結(jié)合的形式。因為城市空間里發(fā)生的各種事件和各色人等的混雜與無序性，所以似乎用一個平面的帶有邊框的畫布來限制，反倒能給在視覺上帶來一種積蓄能 量的感覺；而私人空間里發(fā)生的故事，如果不用立體的三維雕塑和裝置的形式來展示，似乎無法在視覺上有力地揭示出涌動在私密室內(nèi)的人與人之間的曖昧與情色關(guān) 系。

對 于室外題材，王南飛的創(chuàng)作手法采取的是聚合不同對象于同一畫面并且居高臨下的俯視姿態(tài)；對于室內(nèi)題材，她的手法是拆散和打開封閉空間，將那些不可告人的故 事公之于眾。在這一合一拆中，當代城市生活里人與人之間岌岌可危和光怪陸離的關(guān)系，被她這個城市變遷的見證人揭示了出來。沒有宏篇巨制的因果邏輯，也沒有 卿卿我我的呢喃低語，王南飛就這樣以個人的方式來面對她所終日身處其中的城市生活，找到其中的某些片段，以一種與這種城市文化并不直接相融的異在立場來表 現(xiàn)這些片段。這些作品就擺在這里，沒有任何的強迫，卻讓人看后難以忘卻。或許，一個女性的城市異在者，就應(yīng)該這么樸實地呈現(xiàn)她所看到和所理解的城市生活。

Wang Nanfei’s art explores contemporary urban life in China by examining the public and private lives or urban residents. Though this is a recurring theme in contemporary art, this work is remarkable. Unlike previous work by this woman artist, in these she avoids using flowers and grass that stem from a boundless, beautiful imagination. She bores in on the core values of city life and the relationships between people, whether private or public. She does not engage in fantasy or create a romantic, mysterious garden for herself. She abandons herself to the city and its realities, yet she also transcends the self and any limits that might be imposed by her sex by objectively viewing and portraying the everyday moments in city life found in China today.           

Yet, this objective view is not that of photography, overt realism or imitation; it contains a kind of difference arising from being outside of the city scene, a view addresses urban living and its abusiveness. She uses this objectivity and her narrative to reveal life in the city’s public space, turning to every area of the city. It might be better stated to say that she paints the human farce in the public space rather than the fancy street itself. Strangers, lovers and ordinary people talk on the street, saunter, watch, spy, make love: these are real depictions of city people forming the content of the everyday city life that surrounds us. Maybe these things didn’t all happen at the same time, but they are here in one painting, expressing the complicated, the ruled and the unruly. The differences in human figure proportions and shadow directions and angles symbolize the various relationships and discrepancies involved.    

The effect of these scenes of human life reveal the difficulties found in today’s urban living. Cities have become metropolises; farmers have lost their fields; laborers have lost their jobs; the retired and elderly cast about for meaning or something to do; youth struggle to begin their lives. Wives, policemen and criminals encounter each other on the street; everybody comes into contact with the other in the city space, including strangers and people from other lands. Some of the characters gaze at a traffic jam or watch each other; all of this appears in the paintings, hinting at the fretfulness in life and a desire for some kind of mercy. Wang Nanfei put herself above the street, viewed what happened below and hints at what is to come; she creates a new point of view, while at the same time facing everything that involves her, because she is a part of this environment too; she must sink or swim in the same pool of fortune with everyone else.

While the streets are comparatively anonymous and cold, the indoor lives of others are full of lust: there’s drinking on the side of a table and scenes in a pool, bathtub, under a fruit tree...the expressions of lust are bravely stated and straightforward. Only two men drinking tea at a window reflect the peaceful, relaxed and perhaps the material aspects of urban life. These paintings rely upon the use of oil on canvas; her sculptures are of wood and paper. Because all kinds of things are happening and all kinds of people are tossed together into the mix of city life, she uses a flat frame for purposes of control to create a feeling of visual energy. The stories often take place in a private space; if she had not used a three-dimensional installation to express these relationships, it would seem difficult to have expressed these living emotions in any other way.

Outdoors, Wang Nanfei overlooks her subjects, using them to focus her painting views and ideas. Her ideas penetrate and reveal otherwise closed spaces, including the secrets of the public space. As a witness of this rapidly changing city, she hones in on the precariously bizarre and gaudy relationships found around us. There is no big logic, no low voice talk: Wang Nanfei uses her own ways to face her everyday life space, to probe the fragments and to express herself about these fragments from various points of view, without making a direct connection with any external sources of power or control, making this work unforced, yet unforgettable. Wang Nanfei brings us a specific woman’s perspective on how she sees and understands city life.