Inspiration Book 常智飞 Zhifei Chang 10 feb, 2014
常智飞 Zhifei Chang Henan, China
my first own work:
1. primary school (1997-2003) Started drawing when I was 7 at primary school. During that time I learned some basic techniques, like pencil drawing, traditional chinese painting, printmaking and pastel drawing. Topic was 'visualizing' and 'copying':
my pencil drawing:
a traditional way of chinese painting plants
my printmaking:
my pastel drawing:
'sea animals'
'a chinese New Year'
'sugar cane'
my ink printmaking:
2. secondary school (2003-2010) In free time after school I started to pratice pencil sketching; still life, some quick sketching and gouache. I was sellected to follow preparation lessons for art college. Basic works, for the art college test, to show that I mastered techniques:
still life of a jar...
portret of a model...
gouache after this composition my teacher introduced me to the works of Paul CĂŠzanne, to study colors; this was my first acquaintance of european art (history)
quick sketching of models
3. MIADA (Design Academy ChongQing in China), 2010-2014 Studying graphic design. The curriculum included design, visual art, illustration, art history, photography and introduction to 'diversity' by several -international- artists. Out of college I started experimenting with oil painting, acryl painting 'mixed materital' and digital art processing. I became interested in Dada and surrealism, did research in Max Ernst's works...
Max Ernst 'L'ange du foyer'
...and was fascinated in his surrealism world. Started to usen the pen as an outline of my work. Jonatan Cantero's work did realize me the impact of bright color.
Jonatan Cantero
At the same time I also learned computer skills. I experimented in scanning and combing pieces of art. I used this kind of illustration with bright colors in about 60 piece of works.
'tree eyes' 2010 the travel in deep forest, alone... by the dark green we cannot distinguish the road... in the drawing the contrast of bright color was copied in.
'flower' 2011
'beast' 2011
'virus' 2011
'new faces' 2011 My art college offered an optional course in chinese painting. I am glad I could pratice traditional painting again... I did some research on Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145), my favorite chinese artist when I was in primary school. He was famous in long size painting [ http://czh.fj61. net/show.aspx?id=1016&cid=31 ]. I experimented with panorama painting and deep sea animals (see also above, detailing): 'Twelve Chinese Zodiac signs' mixed materials 2011 In spare time I was playing with some cooking materials. I then had the idea to make "Twelve Chinese Zodiac signs". All these animals like to eat, so therefor the material is very important for the meaning.
mixed materials 2011 I made a monster, combining human fingers with an animal body. Every body part shows a different feeling of the monster. During the making process I had some difficulties with giving shape to the material, which learned me a lot about this technique.
mixed materious
self-portrait, mixed materials 2011
After my digital and mixed materials art processing, I started expermenting in acrylic on canvor:
I became very interested in the illustration work of John Kenn. I realized that his magic surrealism by drawing simple single colors did connect my own art development from childhood to maturity:
John Kenn
John Kenn
influenced by John Kenn I made some preliminary studies:
the out come was...
'Blue Dancer' acrylic painting on canvor 2011 'protect' oil on canvor 2011
resulting in:
2012 illustration class with water colors: ...inspiration by animal picture and the works of Maria Primachenko
[ https://www.google.com/search?q=Maria+Primachenko&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=AKjyUpidBtHK0AWKyoGoDw&ved= 0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=702 ]
source animals:
4. Me and magic realism (continuing): Robert Steven Connett
[facebook.com/rsconnett]
Learning about magic realism made me become aware of the connection I would like to make between modern european art and tratitional chinese art.
In 2012 I produced the first pictures that combined these new insights. 'composition of a picture': background less black than modern european tradition; I designed a much more bright, colorful character (traditional chinese), so I realized that my art development was more realistic than magic.
'Shanhaijing' chinese painting 2011-2013
Thus since 2010 I was doing research in the art of drawing beasts. I was inspirated by Jacob Covey and Jon Todd.
Shanhaijing ('classic of mountains and seas') is an old chinese fantasy story, the first time I read this story I fell in love with it. One of my teachers suggested me to copy some of the paintings of this traditional book. All drawings were made with chinese brushes. From the 250 drawings of the Shanhaijing book I selected 180 drawings to experiment with. My teacher became so enthusiastic about my work that I came to the idea to publish. I edited 230 books of 130 pages. My book is a representation of the stage of personal development I was before going to the Netherlands. My drawings show the reflection, the combination and the connection between chinese traditional 'monster art' and modern 'magic realism' monster drawing. The objects of my drawings in my book are derived from the 4th century BC:
from:
'BEASTS' by Jacob Covey (2008)
Doing research on (chinese) monster history, I also found european monster history; Jacob Covey's book is a collection of illustrator's monster work. The development of european 'monster art' gave me a new reflection on how to rework chinese monster art tradition. Even more impressive was Jon Todd's imagination world:
'classic of mountains and seas' (Beijing 2009) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Mountains_and_Seas
Further I used the following bright, traditional chinese colours:
(The chinese color names do not have an english connotion/translation)
Jon Todd
(www.jontodd.ca)
And thirdly I used the traditional chinese technique of brush stroken in chinese painting and calligraphy:
example of traditional chinese painting 鳖鱼 Turtle
The title of my book is ' 山 海 经 '[Shan-hai-jing] Out of two trial editions I decided to publish the square edition.
[http://issuu.com/andrewchang20/docs/_________]
the artistic thread of my book:
fish The 'turtle fish' is an imagination of a carp fish which is described in chinese tradition as 'dragon fish'; for me the representation of the this fish is most important because it links chinese triditional between 'dragon' mystery with the magic realism of a turtlefish. Roe deer owl The name of the mythological beast is "Shan Hai Jing Kitayama". It represents a sheep with a human face; the head under his arm, the tiger claw and his teeth. It is a reflection of a baby owl that is represented as a roe deer that is eating people. 狍鴞
开明兽 The
just beast According to 'Shu legend', the 'just beast', the tiger, havoced the Peng monster to a turtle spirit.
5. Hoge School der Kunsten (HKU), Utrecht, Netherlands From September till December 2013 I was an exchange student for illustration at HKU. During this time I was stimulated to continue exploring chinese traditional painting and reflecting on the european way of modern drawing. This is my 'european' influence of further development of my art career going back to China. First paintings made in Netherlands (chinese mind setting)
'vertical waves' acrylic on canvor 2013
‘rebirth’ acrylic on paper 2013
Van Gogh (1853-1890)
At HKU I was introduced by the work of Vincent van Gogh in the classes of art history. I visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. I realised that Van Gogh really is the liberator of local color.
Van Gogh's use of brushwork and the basic colors of his paintings which initially were still very dark, inspired me to portrait painting as is shown in the comparison of my first 'dutch painting' and my first portrait painting.
first portrait on acrylic on canvor 2013
The next chapter After the making of my book and reflecting about new things to do because of my arrival in the Netherlans I opted for experimenting with grey color (Van Gogh's influence), water color on paper The work I did was combing grey color and undersea animals, elaborating on my concept of combing traditional chinese art with modern european art.
'seahorses' 2013
'vein structure of an octopus' 2013
'an imagination' 2013
'under water ghost' 2013
For me Miró's 'magic realism' and semi-surrealism are a direct inspiration next to traditional chinese painting. Miró's magic is a representation of absurdism, while chinese traditional magic art for me is an inspiration to give back traditional art in an appealing setting, which now is the aim of my work.
The next chapter (continuing) However I was introduced by the works of Joan Miró in art classes in China, I realized when I was studying in HKU how important the development of Joan Miró is for me: his work on the diversification of 'magic realism' and 'surrealism' is inspiring me above and beyond. The happiness we notice in the details of Miró's painting are, however, explained by him as the tragic site of his temprament, thus his absurd interpretation of life.
'Pandora 1' acrylic on canvor 2013
The specific details in Miró's painting inspire(d) me to explore and to exprement the way chinese traditional painting is detailing. Image and underground are connected.
Artwork by Joan Miró
'Pandora 2' acrylic on canvor 2013:
In Febrary of 2014, the next step of my development is that I brought together my learnings in China and the new things I learned in the Netherlands. In a way the two pictures bellow are a storytelling of my development as an artist:
' 三体 1 (trisomy 1)' acrylic on paper 2013: ' 三体 2 (trisomy 2)' acrylic on paper 2014
The last synthesis of my chinese learning and european experience.
6. Future plans
What is new, is the abstract and absurd influence I try to combine with my skill of painting surrealist animal figurative art. For me reflection on art theory is a new skill I learned at my stay in the Netherlands. I am very inspired to elaborate and to integrate this new thinking in my future work of art. In both 'trisomies' I show the effect of my news insights. In fact it is adding new elements: I am telling a story, that has not yet an end.
In February 2014 I will go back to China to obtain my bachlors in graphic art at the university of ChongQing. I am applying at AKV St Joost, fine art master, the Netherlands. Next to that I am aiming to futher develop my skills of illustration. Concept-ualising: although I do have the feeling that I know all major (traditional) chinese techniques I would like to explore more in depth the methodology of chinese art tradition; I acknowledge that my art classes in China and my short stay in Netherlands only gave me a short introduction in the development of (european) modern art history. I suppose that the next step in my personal development will be that I shall understand more about modern art development. I expect that more knowledge about (european) modern art will also give me extra skills to reflect and realize integration and syntesis between chinese and global art development.
See all my work: http://www.flickr.com/photos/changandrew/