Cover | Sun Guosheng
Sun:When did you begin to focus on the ancient classical painting and calligraphy art, which part of the ancient painting and calligraphy you are interested in? what kind of painting and calligraphy you will choose into your creation?
Chen:before 2013, the works did not follow the classical landscape as the background schema of my work, even before also expressed about city culture, although it is also about the expression of urban culture, but the picture is only in the form of some changes, after painting a period of time, in the language of painting to form their own personal appearance, but in the expression of concept will be some thin, always feel that the lack of a point, later, I thought I would return to the Chinese culture, traditional landscape as the most representative of the traditional humanistic spirit, her cold environment, solemn and quiet, cosmic gas, there is a sharp contrast and contradiction with the hustle and bustle of the urban culture, the combination of the two will bring a lot of thinking, one is to return to the traditional culture of their own to find nutrients, second is the transformation of the traditional spirit in the moment, the methodology is established. The original idea is to borrow on behalf of traditional humanistic spirit landscape as a kind of cultural landscape control, as long as suitable for the expression of picture, can not which painting to use, the landscape here is a representative body of spirit.
Chen Jun | 《third of city landscape》| 110×80cm | Chinese art paper, ink and wash, propylene | 2014
Sun:You create your own creation and use of ancient masterpieces and fused together in a way, hope to achieve what kind of effect, what inspired you to do so, what changes have you made with your previous ideas?
Chen: This series is a continuity thinking of a series of works before, direct adopt the copy of the ancient paintings, from the perspective of modern art, it is also a kind of application of the finished goods on the material, a classic painting, I put him down as “classic” and “today’s classic” two parts to present, itself is also the digestion of the traditional spirit, at first, on the part of the ancient painting, I consider to draw by myself, but from the point of view, it is just a modern interpretation of the tradition, in the embodiment of the classic will be greatly reduced, later, I thought it would be used directly, the position of two will be more intuitive, more designed, more strong collision, through the transformation of tradition and modern, it is also express the dialectical relationship between the fusion and contrary of tradition and modernity.
Chen Jun | 《Eighth of classical · today’s classical》| Chinese art paper, ink and wash, propylene | 2015
Sun: There will always be some everyday images in your painting, how do you choose?
Chen:My work is the integration of a lot of industrial civilization consumer culture, such as well-known trademarks, billboards, I’ll paint it so clearly that it can be identified, in order to strengthen the material wealth and spiritual deficiency of the modern civilization, in my recent work, I am slowly weakening the specific symbols, and strengthen the common urban visual perception, partly hidden and partly visible, but from the whole picture makes sense is urbanized landscape. This individual universality of the weakening is more routine, his extension is larger.
Chen Jun |《Second of colorful robe》| 210×110cm | Chinese art paper, ink and wash, propylene | 2012
Sun:Before you ever talked, you have no too much deep exploration in the skill of traditional Chinese painting, but some classical works are the master works in classical technique and the classical spirit, what do you think you should absorb or abandon?
Chen: The tradition is a golden hill, have an inexhaustible supply of valuable resources, the reason why become the classics, we must return to its own context times in order to show its value, in this moment we lost the ancient language environment that the traditional landscape rely on, survival experience and knowledge pedigree is completely different, now face the heavy tradition, we need to do is to look at the value and significance of the present in a new way, and change it from the new art. Before I was in college, I studied oil painting, but the study of traditional Chinese painting was far from enough, in 2013, my works are not in the form of landscape, the form of the picture is partial to the west, including the material is also used propylene, mineral color, the use of the point approach, the formation of my own more mature language, before and after 2014, began to use the traditional landscape as the background schema, I just follow my way of language in the shape of the landscape from the new organization, in technically no problem, just in the process of painting, I gradually found the common of a way of “dot” modeling and landscape “cunfa”, my “diancun” is my long term formed way with an expression of my mind, just now my “diancun” compared to the traditional “cunfa” in the language is the carrier of more current means, is this a kind of transformation?
Chen Jun |《Seasonal landscape·Qingyuan》| 38×182cm | Chinese art paper, ink and wash, propylene, mineral
Sun: Can you talk about the thinking of the change of your newest creation?
Chen:The nearest series called 《Seasonal landscape》, seasonal is in the moment, traditional landscape represents the spiritual landscape, but at the moment, it has become a matter of “landscape of materiality” to trigger a critical, the criticism and reflection on the problems of environment problem, culture rupture problem, culture gene problem in a strange, familiar and unfamiliar image, maybe we’re thinking about these issues, there will be a new thinking in the future, every season there will be a time of the landscape!