Nurturing, human, noble, looking beyond the pain and straight into the eyes of transforming into the inevitable

孕育，人性，高尚，超越痛苦，直視雙眼，成就必然

In Zhou Qiaoyun’s art, we are witnessing the most primordial but at the same time the most essential elements as we hurl into the future and yet again redefine and reinvent the meaning of being or becoming of a human. One can immediately imagine and create an analogue with a flourishing of the flower, the painful (for us humans - not so much for flowers as they don’t have neural receptors) and yet graceful and glorious process of transformation…. The becoming of a flower as it slowly sets in motion all the required chemistry that leads into patterns, a reflection of a sun, sometimes reflecting the stars in different shades, another times the petals are so elongated that they remind of the rays of light. In this spirit Zhao Qiaoyin’s deeply expressive technique touches in us the blooming, somewhat mysterious process of nurturing, especially in today’s world of self centered survival mechanism. 

在周巧云的藝術中，我們見證著最原始但同時也是最基本的藝術元素，我們面向未來，重新定義和改變存在人或成為人的意義。你可以現在想象和創造一種花朵綻放開的意象，這是一個痛苦(不是花本身痛苦，而是相對于我們人類本身來說，因為花沒有神經接受器)但優雅而輝煌的轉變過程……當它慢慢地開始發生變化形成一朵花時，所有必需的化學成分組合成了不同的圖案，有時刻畫出陽光，有時是五顏六色的星星，有時又是細長的花瓣，讓人不禁想到一束束光線。本著這樣的精神，周巧云的表現手法深深觸動了我們身上那種花開綻放或者說是一種孕育生命的神秘過程，特別是在我們今天這個以自我為中心的生存機制的世界里。

空境0305，31cmX36cm，紙本水墨，2019年

The question of nurturing which is so much more typical and associated to women then men, at least in larger percentage (primarily associated to children raising) at this point of our evolving civilization makes us question what is noble and truly human? To nurture, give, support and raise from the ashes the innocents of this world or to compete, crush by exploiting the weakness of the opponent in the right moment and make a progress by building an impenetrable shield against the world (be it through words or action), oblivious to the surrounding. I think that we all have found ourselves at either one or the other sides of this pendulum many times through life and this question is the one of identity with only conditional identification of what is right and what is wrong, because they both have a purpose. However, if we take a look at the patterns of our truly ancient past, the times of the Dinosaurs, it wasn’t the ruthlessness and skillful survival technique that made the life after the asteroid impact possible but the ability to nurture that opened a new chapter for the species underground, to flourish on this planet after the ages of darkness and humility. It was the ability to nurture in the hidden shelters of Earth’s crust that we still genetically remember from the creatures so insignificant at the time but possessing the super powers of nurturing and collecting for the future, thinking ahead.

生兒育女的問題在女性身上比男性更典型，至少更大的程度上(主要是撫養孩子)在我們不斷進化的文明中，這個問題讓我們質疑什么是高尚而真正的人類?孕育、付出、支持和養育這個世界上幼小而單純的生命，讓他們學會競爭，學會利用對手的弱點在正確的時刻摧毀對方,學會通過構建一個密不透風的防御世界(無論是通過文字或行動)取得進步,忽視周圍的世界。我認為我們都會發現自己在生活中多次處于鐘擺的一端或另一端，而這個問題是一種有條件地識別什么是對什么是錯的定義問題，因為它們都有一個目的。然而,如果我們回望過去真正古老的模式——恐龍時代, 會發現并不是冷血和嫻熟的生存技巧使小行星撞擊地球后的生命能夠存活，而是那種養育能力為地下物種打開了新的篇章，使它們經歷黑暗和謙卑的時代之后能在在地球上繁榮昌盛。正是因為這種能夠在地殼的隱蔽處進行養育的能力，從基因上來說，我們仍然記得當時的那些生物，他們微不足道，但卻擁有孕育生命、沉淀積累和預見未來的超能力。

涌動0902，136cmx136cm，100cmX80cm，綜合繪畫裝置,2019年

Zhou Qiaoyun’s expression raises this subject, the trajectory of her artwork is rooted in the world and studies of flowers, the process of flourishing through the prism of traditional Chinese painting. Flowers, those perishable, impermanent reminders of wonder are so often perceived only in the domain of aesthetics, but this is an illusion, common to many areas with superficial effects. Once we go beyond the superficiality of perceiving the flower in this context, we discover that the power of analogy reaches far into the question of creation, birth, transformation, growth and a sacred return to the beginning, because the flower almost always leaves the seed, a ray of hope for the next generation to pick up where it left of if the environmental circumstances are right. 

周巧云的表述提出了這一主題，她的藝術軌跡植根于世界和花卉研究，通過中國畫的棱鏡映射出蓬勃發展的過程。花兒，那些朝榮夕悴的、轉瞬即逝的奇觀，通常只在美學領域被察覺，但這是一種幻覺，在許多具有表面效果的領域都是很常見的。一旦我們超越了在這種情況下感知花朵的膚淺性，我們就會發現類比的力量已深入到創造、誕生、轉化、生長和神圣回歸起點的問題中，因為花朵幾乎總是離開種子，如果環境狀況良好，這將是下一代從頭再來的一線希望。

Sometimes in Zhou Qiaoyun’s paintings, the appearance of and a dominance of shades ranging from intense red to light red brings association to the comforting feeling relating to the circumstances that would allow the seed to grow back to the flower, reflecting the Mandelbrotian nature of the experience of life. The patterns in most of her paintings are creating a quality of floating in diverse directions, nurturing, tendering, making the world seem less hostile, they give solace, at the same time some of the larger scale paintings seem to make a statement that the life is not only about passive nurtured living, surrounded by the shield of the other or favorable circumstances planted by those before, but also about crystallizing the purpose. Finding the sacred symmetry that makes the flourishing possible. 

有時在周巧云的繪畫中，從深紅到淺紅色調的展現和主導，會讓人聯想到種子重新開放出花朵，這種情景讓人心情舒暢，反映出曼德爾布洛德式的生命體驗。她的大部分作品的模式都在創建一種針對不同的方向浮動的質量，孕育，付出，使世界似乎不那么充滿敵意,它們給予安慰,同時一些規模較大的繪畫似乎在發聲說生活不僅是被動的培育、周圍的庇護或是事先創造出有利的環境,生命還關乎明確目的。找到神圣的對稱，使繁榮成為可能。

At the end, the small events can make all the change, just a move of a finger, a wrong thought, an impulse, can distort a reality from a harmonious whole to a fragmented competition for space. Impossibility of becoming, because the greatest pain is the one caused to the living entity that can’t become what it is, but what the circumstances want it to become. These are all doubts and fears surrounding thepain of uncertain future, while nurturing yet another becoming of self or another, originally the self and another was once One. The pain of separation and the ultimate bliss of togetherness are two of the most powerful elements that are strongly communicated in Zhou Qiaoyun’s paintings, a reminder of the times before, sometimes in our own core when we knew that being human means being noble, nurture and make progress in a healthy balance of each other. 

最后，一些瑣碎小事可以改變一切，只是一個手指的移動，一個錯誤的想法，一次沖動，就可以把一個和諧統一的整體扭曲成一個支離破碎的空間競爭。成長具有不可能性，因為最大的痛苦是生命實體不能變成它本身想成為的樣子，而是由環境決定想要它成為什么。這些都是在培育另一個自我或其他人，又或者是當初的自我或另一個曾經的某人時，不確定的未來帶給我們的痛苦疑惑和恐懼。分離的痛苦和團聚的最終幸福是兩個最強大的元素，在周巧云的畫作中強烈地展示出來,讓我們回想起曾經的年代,有時在我們自己的內心之中,我們知道人類意味著高尚、培育和達成彼此之間的健康平衡。

Irina Ideas Klyuev

伊瑞娜

【展覽現場】