段 煉

加拿大康科迪亞大學教授

文學及美術學博士

 

 

郭燕是當代美術界新起的女畫家，九十年代中期，她畢業于西安美術學院油畫系，現在活躍于畫壇。郭燕近年的作品，多描繪內心意象，化想象、思考、期翼為一體，風格獨特，引起了美術界的關注。

 

我看郭燕的畫，首先被畫中不尋常的內心意象所吸引，那就是漂浮在空中的人，這讓我聯想到俄國現代主義大師夏加爾那些想象力奇特的畫面，既充滿浪漫的情懷，又有傷感的詩意氣質。但是，郭燕與夏加爾的視覺關聯僅是一種表象，所謂浪漫，所謂傷感，在這里只是一種風格和形式。郭燕的畫來自她所身歷的現世生活，畫中人物相對寫實，而夏加爾關注來世生活，畫中人物在浪漫與傷感中多是變形的。

 

透過浪漫與傷感的表象，我們進一步看郭燕的畫，發現她與夏加爾的聯系，不是表面的視覺聯系，而是內在的精神聯系，那就是力圖超越現世、追求精神自由。郭燕繪畫所展示的是兩個世界，一是流云飛渡的長空，二是高樓林立的城市，二者都一片幽深，神秘莫測，既給人自由的空間，又限制了人的自由，恰如人心深處的潛意識世界。在這深邃的天地之間，幽然透出一線光亮，那些漂浮的戀人，就在這光亮的天河里隨波逐流。

 

隨波逐流是人在天地之間的夢游，是睡夢與清醒之間的潛意識狀態，是一種貌似不自知的自由追求。在這樣的意義上說，郭燕筆下的人物，與夏加爾筆下那些天使般的來世戀人有了相通之處：執著的追求，隱藏在不經意的瀟灑和散漫中。面對郭燕的畫，看到這一步，我們就得提出一個問題：郭燕畫中的天使為什么夢游？其實，這也是藝術家要尋求的答案，而答案就在夢游者與城市的關系中，在人與生存環境的關系中，在于畫家以睡夢的方式去體驗自己的生存狀態，去追尋歸宿的港灣。

 

在郭燕的繪畫中，藝術家借睡夢來體驗自己的內心追求。畫面上那些夢游天使幾乎沒有獨眠者，他們要么是分床而臥的男女，要么是同床共枕的情侶或同床異夢的夫妻，要么是相依而眠的母女，要么是各自漂浮的家人。在我看來，畫家在此探索和體驗的首先是一種形而下的家庭關系，其中既有相互的依存，也有各自的獨立。然而，畫家的探索也是形而上的，那些漂浮在城市上空的半睡半醒的人，象征著藝術家永不安寧的游蕩之魂，既像飛鳥一樣追求內心自由，也如倦鳥那般，在城市的樓群森林里，尋找棲息之地。

作為生存環境的象征，畫中下界的城市，多是鋼筋水泥的莽林。無論凌空俯視，還是側面剪影，森林般的城市既為人提供了生存條件，也壓縮了人的生存空間。即便是身臨郊外別墅區的上空，這種欲迎還拒、欲拒還迎的環境，都透露出環境對人的態度，以及人對環境的認識。如前所述，畫面上的天際線，都無一例外地在黑暗的茫茫天空和陰森的大地間滲出一絲清冷的晨光，向我們提示了半睡半醒的神志狀態。這就是說，在時間和空間的兩個維度上，在物理和心理的兩個領域里，這狀態都向我們這些看畫的人，提示了理智與本能的碰撞，提示了嘗試和思考的對接，提示了探索和追求的承續。

 

面對郭燕的繪畫，在有了上述解讀后，我需要做一點理論的闡述，主要借用英國當代精神分析中的“母嬰關系”概念，以求哲學的歸納。在心理學意義上講，母嬰關系影響甚至決定了一個人的心理發展和社會存在。在社會學意義上講，母嬰關系可以延伸為個人與家庭的關系、個人與群體的關系、個人與社會的關系，也可以延伸為人與自然的關系。這種延伸，是一個從形而下到形而上的過程。在藝術心理學和藝術社會學的意義上說，女畫家筆下的母嬰關系，是對自由程度的嘗試，是對精神自由的體驗，可以演繹為諸多家庭關系，如夫妻關系、婆媳關系、母子關系等等。實際上，畫家本人的家庭角色是變化著的，她既扮演孩子的角色，也扮演母親的角色，既尋求保護，也給予保護，既尋求自由，也探索自由的限度。這當中的要義，是個人與生存環境的互動關系。

 

在這樣的關系中，個人的行為，是為自己尋求合適的生存位置和足夠的自由空間。母嬰關系是藝術家在心理漂泊的過程中對歸宿感的尋求、嘗試和體驗，相對于這樣的體驗，往日藝術理論中的所謂再現客觀世界、表現主觀世界、探索純粹形式之類說教，便顯得蒼白無力。這時，唯有體驗，才觸及了藝術作為心理治療和協調機制的要義。因此，我們看郭燕的繪畫，不必去看她再現或表現了什么，而應該去悉心感受這位藝術家的內心體驗。

 

藝術家的體驗，重在自身內審的心理圖像，因而在畫面上，人物外在的面部刻畫便相對簡約甚至模糊，藝術家關注的是個人化的歷史意識的心理表述。批評家們當然可以用女性主義理論和方法來解讀郭燕的藝術，然而在我眼中，這位畫家對母嬰關系的體驗，是女性的但不一定是女性主義的，因為畫家所關注的，是女性作為人所面對的生存環境和社會關系，而不是固執地一味強調女性的性別政治。這就像母嬰關系中的母親，她代表了人的生存環境而不一定非得是具體的母親，嬰兒代表了這個環境中的個人而不一定非得是具體的嬰兒，而一位女性藝術家借助繪畫來體驗母嬰關系，則在她想象、思考和期翼的心理過程中，化為對個人的生活歷程及其社會存在的視覺表述。

 

從郭燕的繪畫作品中退出來，面對面與這位藝術家交談，我看到的卻是另外一個人，一個溫文爾雅、安靜秀氣的女畫家。但我相信，畫家的內心世界是不安寧的，正如那天地間透出的一線亮光，正如那些陪伴著夢中天使一道漂浮的流云，畫家的內心深處，激流洶涌。這激流，既象冬天封凍的山溪，在冷靜的冰面下奔騰不息，也象火山爆發的巖漿，最后凝固成安詳的熔巖。

 

這一切，就是我眼中郭燕的藝術，在浪漫和傷感的表象之下，內心里奔涌著對精神自由的執著追求。

 

二ＯＯ八年七月，成都

 

 

Duan Lian

Professor of Concordia University Canada

Doctor of Literature and Art

 

 

 

Guo Yan, a young woman painter, graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in the mid 1990s, and has since been active in the Chinese art scene. Most of her recent works put stress on expressing inner images and integrating imagination, consideration and aspiration. The style of her works is rather special and unique, which has drawn the attention of the public and critics alike.

 

When I look at Guo Yan’s paintings, I am immediately attracted by the unusual imagery. The figure of a man floating in the air makes me think about the imaginative pictures of Marc Chagall, a Russian modernism master, which are romantic and sentimental. However, the visual connection between Guo Yan and Marc Chagall seems only a superficial phenomenon, as all the romance and sentiment in her works is just a question of style and form. Guo Yan’s paintings come from her personal life experiences, and the characters in paintings are relatively realistic, while Marc Chagall pays attention to the afterlife, and most of his characters are anamorphic in the emotion of romance and sentiment.

 

More careful analysis of the paintings of Guo Yan, reaching beyond the superficial phenomenon of romance and sentiment, reveals that the connection between her work and Marc Chagall’s paintings is not only a visual one. In fact, there exists a different, metaphysical link between these two artists, as they are both looking for transcendence and spiritual freedom. Guo Yan’ works show two worlds, one is the wide sky full of floating clouds, and the other one is cities imbued with high buildings. Both of them are mysterious. This imagery offers people free space, at the same time limiting their freedom, just like our subconscious puts constraints on the conscious actions we perform. In this deep and profound world, there is only a faint light shining in the dark, where the floating lovers share their joy.

 

The people flying in the bright sky are sleepwalking, suspended between dream and reality. The act of sleepwalking represents their unconscious pursuit of freedom. In this sense again, Guo Yan’s figures are similar to Marc Chagall’s angelical afterlife lovers: persistent pursuit is hidden under what seems to be casual carelessness. Looking at Guo Yan’s pictures, having deciphered and appreciated their true meaning, we are faced with another question: why do the angels from her works wander in sleep? In fact, this is also what the artists wish to find out, and the answer is hidden right in the relation between the sleepwalker and the city, or between the human being and the living environment. The painter tries to render the experience of her own state of mind, using dreams to find out something about her own fate.

 

In Guo Yan’s paintings, the artist shows her inner pursuit by means of a dream. In her works, the dreaming angels hardly ever sleep alone. There are men and women sleeping separately, lovers sleeping together, a husband and a wife who sleep together but are separated by an emotional gap. Other figures include a mother and a daughter sleeping and nestling together and some family members floating separately. In my opinion, what the painter explores and experiences here firstly is a kind of a metaphysical family relation, where the members rely on each other at the same time being independent people. Moreover, the painter’s exploration also has a metaphysical dimension. Those half-awakened people who float in the sky over the city stand for the artist’s restless soul. They are like birds pursuing their freedom, and like tired birds find rest in the forest of the city buildings.

 

As the symbol of living environment, most cities in the pictures are wild forests of reinforced cement. Even though there is the sky above, it is the forest-like city that offers people a place to live and squeezes their living space. As mentioned above, the horizon in the pictures leaks a little light and cool twilight to the completely dark lonesome sky and somber earth, which suggests a half-awakened spiritual state. That is to say, in the dimensions of time and space, in the areas of physics and psychology, this state suggests to us the contradiction of sense and sensibility, the link between the heart and the reason, as well as the inheritance of exploration and pursuit of freedom.

 

Facing Guo Yan’s works and having the understanding of the above mentioned points, we could reach a philosophical conclusion, using as the theoretical background the concept of “mother-infant relationship” developed by the modern British psychoanalysis. From the philosophical perspective, mother-infant relationship influences or even determines person’s mental development and social existence. From the sociological point of view, this relationship can be further considered as a relation between individual and family, between individual and group, and between individual and society. Moreover, it can also be regarded as a relation between human and nature. From the point of view of art psychology and art sociology, the mother-infant relationship showing in Guo Yan’s pictures is an attempt to set herself free, and as such is an experience of spiritual freedom. This attempt and experience can be expressed by many family relations: such as the relation between husband and wife, between mother and daughter-in-law and between mother and son, etc. As a matter of fact, painter’s own family role is changing, she plays the role of both a child and a mother, so she needs to be protected while she protects others, and she pursues freedom while exploring the limitations of the freedom of others. The nature of these relations is the interaction between individual and living environment.

 

In such a relation, the individual naturally aims to achieve suitable living conditions and enough free space. Mother-infant relationship represents also the artist’s pursuit and experience of destiny in the process of spiritual search. Compared with such an experience, the whole theory of art, based on the representation of the objective world, showing subjective world or exploring pure form, seems weak and powerless. Here, only the true experiences touch the nature of art as psychotherapy and coordination mechanism. Therefore, when we appreciate Guo Yan’ works, the representations and forms of expression are of secondary importance, all we should do is concentrate on the feelings provoked by the artist’s personal experience.

 

The experiences of the artist emphasize the mental image of inner exploration, so the facial features of depicted characters are relatively simple or even ambiguous, because what artists pays attention to is the mental expression of individualized historical consciousness. Critics can of course apply feminist theory to Guo Yan’s paintings, but to me, the painter’s experience comes from the female perspective, and absolutely not the feminist perspective. What the painter values is the living environment and social relations that women face as human beings, rather than repeatedly emphasized gender politics. Just like the mother in the mother-infant relationship represents human living environment and not any specific mother, the infant stands for an individual in environment not a specific infant. A women artist experiences mother-infant relationship by means of painting, and transfers it to the visual expression of individual’s life path and social existence in her mental process of imagination, consideration and expectation.

 

Turning back from Guo Yan’s works towards the young artist herself, when I met her in person I saw a gentle, cultivated, quiet and polite woman painter whose character is totally different from that of the figures in her paintings. However, I believe that she must own a wild inner world just like that faint light and those floating clouds following the angel in the dream. And she must have a heart full of enthusiasm and passion. The passion is just like a frozen stream in the wintertime, surging under the ice, and the enthusiasm just like the magma of the volcano explosion, the freezing lava.

 

In my view, Guo Yan’s art is mostly about firmly pursuing spiritual freedom and reaching beyond the superficial phenomenon of romance and sentiment.

 

 

Chengdu, July 2008