In Search of the Fountain of Youth

Ivy Zhou (Zhou Bingxin)

In Search of the Fountain of Youth is a continuation of Zhang Tianjuns solo
exhibition in Beijing; it is also a retrospective looking back on his previous works. Ever
since graduating from the art academy, he has been trying out, deploying and then
repeatedly exploring a distinctive idiom of painting. With a series of mature works
completed, he started making new breakthroughs.
The different series of works exhibited, such as Landscapes, Seascapes and
Treasures, all employ a distinctive technique in their making. This method is based on
granular, textural effectsakin to dyed patterns on paperon the first layer of the
canvas. The frames with the sculpted flowers and the shanshui landscape format, too,
are based on this textural effect, further adding to the richness and overlapping of layers.
There are mountain formations, fake scholarly rocks, clouds, mists, and trees and forests,
to which he correspondingly adds a small path trailing off to the distance, an expanse of
water, or a shaft of light. The initial texture approaches that of abstraction, yet the
momentum of the mountains and the drift of the clouds and waters undergo an utter
metamorphosis away from such abstracted textures. One can attribute this to Zhang
Tianjuns solid grasp of the shanshui imagery of mountains, waters, clouds and forests. It
stems from his extensive contemplation of Song and Yuan-dynasty shanshui landscape
models and the insight he has gained: What the ears and eyes master is acquired in the
heart and mind, then exerted with the hands, as the famed line goes. On the other hand,
it also results from a deft, free and easy manipulation of the original granular, textural
effectsin the search for an equilibrium between the controllable and uncontrollable.
Through the process of enriching, overlaying, and calibrating the canvas, the
continuous addition of small details on the picture plane becomes a compulsive
narcissism and self-interrogation. Concealed within the thicket of Buddhist images could
be a deer glancing back, a room or a little pagoda, or else maybe some hazy pine needles
and branches; such elaborate particulars are camouflaged amid the overall landscape of
pale green tinges and washes of whiteunpresuming, and at once visible and invisible.
They demand from the audience the same amount of patience and time in order to tell
every little detail apart on the picture plane. The process of making the painting
seemingly turns into a process of layering and fine-tuning; the time expended on the
wealth of details, which are at the same time concealed, thus appears especially drawn-
out and protracted. Meanwhile, the audiences pleasure of appreciation equally
accumulates, expands, and breaks free progressively with the dilation and deferral of
time. Temporality here therefore becomes all the more sensitive and exquisite.
Landscapes and seascapes are recurring elements in Zhang Tianjuns oeuvre, from
the early Waves series just after his graduation to the relatively more mature series of
Treasures, The Fountain of Youth, Landscapes, and Seascapes. His infatuation of
and familiarity with Song and Yuan-dynasty paintings is both spiritual and technical. For
the artist himself, it is an infatuation with the chemical reactions of the ink and the
brush. But the difference in medium has dictated that his chemical reaction is both
connected to and yet ultimately different from the shading and rubbing brushstrokes in
traditional ink landscapes on paper. From hazy abstract textures, progressively clearer
landscapes and seascapes are derived; the oils are lapped on layer by layer, between
sparseness and density, the controllable and uncontrollable, at times irresolute and yet
at other times untrammeled. This is an ongoing, meandering, circumspect processand
even more, a lingering over the self.
As the series Landscapes and Seascapes matured, the artist accidentally
discovered the first and also the most fundamental charm to this creative method: that
the process of creating the marine backplane on the wood board is itself a piece of work.
This resulted in the extremely minimalist Seascapes series, based on wood boards as
the material. These waves are the running waters of Ma Yuan, and the boundless oceans
within every human being. Every line of every wave on the wood boards is suffused with
the painterly while at the same time transcends the guilelessness of painting itself. The
monochromatic picture plane makes for a work even more abstract and tranquil. Such
an ostensible accident not only yields from his long artistic practice but also marks a
return to the immediate process of painting itself.