Part 04 Tracing of the Mind

(1)

In 2011, Liu Youju, who was already renowned in the book industry, withdrew from the China Calligraphy Association. He was the second person to voluntarily withdraw from the association after Wu Zhangshu. In 2014, he began exploring color and ink painting, and the first exhibition was successfully held at the Nixon Museum in the United States, receiving high praise from Western scholars and collectors.

Liu Youju's illusory painting is an art of illusory mental imagery.

He blends the world in his eyes with the world in his heart, reality and dreams, expressing the emotional loss of contemporary urban communities and the desire to find a spiritual home. In fact, the spirit of ink painting is the spirit of personality.

For art, Liu Youju interprets it with heart——

Appreciating Liu Youju's illusionist paintings, I was tempted by a dream, so I searched again. In the increasingly pretentious city, the expansion of desire and the triumph of machinery have brought about spiritual distortion and alienation. Depression, loneliness, and indifference are the shadows of the city. Amidst the roaring noise of machines, the city has lost its poetry, thoughts, and passion. The impact bounces back into the cold concrete walls, and the clouds that roar into the night sky turn into brilliance. The illusion of urban material creation of happiness is gradually fading away from us with the natural singing. The birds got used to their cages and forgot to fly. The thick smoke covered the rainbow, the rain turned into tears to wash the city, the winter snow no longer condensed into jade white, and the washed and dirty clouds turned into a clear sky. The green dream of escaping from the city and returning to nature is the spiritual longing and spiritual comfort of urban communities.

The life meaning derived from the relationship between humans and nature is the theme of Liu Youju's creation. The world in his eyes and the world in his heart, reality and dreams have led him to choose the reconstruction of natural art. The external world infiltrates into his own mental image world, and in the new nature and new space between natural reality and internal reality, the mind and nature are illusory, the thing and self blend, freely expressing the truth of his soul.

Phantom is the freedom of the soul, and the illusion of reality and reality is Liu Youju's inner perception. The integration of imagination and imagery is the process of creating a spiritual environment, the expression of emotions and life meanings, and the transformation of reality. Alienation is the transformation of quantity to quality. It is a free way to generate variability and break through the limitations of space and objects from multiple perspectives. It is a language, media, and style, and a dual use of ideas and irrationality. It is a form of self-expression, where natural sounds resonate with my soul, inspiring new and creative imagination. It is the confrontation, separation, fusion, and harmony between space and space, the infinite sublimation of objects from limitations to mental images, and the combination of mental image colors, multi-dimensional spaces, and the "easy appearance fractal".

Ink and wash is an art of illusion, which gathers, disperses, and merges in the fusion of water and ink, creating images through changes. The illusion of ink and wash is full of accidental charm, bringing joy to creation.

The nature of illusion is precisely a part of Liu You's illusory mental image. Illusion is an interpretation of the meaning of the new life image, guiding us to discover the unknown.

Painting is just a medium rather than a standardized art. The language of colored ink is full of understanding and spirituality, and the spirit of colored ink is the spirit of personality.

The current Chinese art scene is dazzling, and people are trapped in helpless confusion. There is no dynasty like the late 20th century Chinese painting that has a strong experimental nature. It is the mission of every Chinese painter to have an understanding of their ancestors, times, and selves, to reflect and discover, to look back and forward, and to explore new fields. We often learn standard ink styles from college classrooms or cater to the taste of the commodity market with affectation. It is a tragedy to transform from a sacred temple into a secular consumer culture, into a "commodity" for handicraft shops in tourist areas, or a decoration on home walls.

Phantom painting is not only a change in materials and language techniques, but more importantly, a change in artistic concepts and painting techniques. The dilemma of Chinese painting is precisely the painter's own confusion, which is not a negation but a transcendence of tradition. The imbalance of illusion painting over time will also become a part of tradition, and the inheritance of modern Chinese painting needs to be creatively explained with its new image. The call of the times, Liu Youju has no choice but to move forward.

Liu Youju's works depict the state of nature, the harmony between humans and nature, the conflict between dreams and reality, the harmony of life, and the sublimity and strength. He uses color blocks and lines to complete the image design, which is a means and feature of Chinese painting art. The mind is like "walking with lines", slowly weaving a sentiment into the picture, tying objects with lines to create meaning, creating visual tension and spirit, and making the picture breathe. A mountain, a tree, a cloud; The combination of emotions and dreams is integrated, from complexity to simplicity, and from disorder to order. The strength of the line, the pen and ink, the light and color, the virtual and real, the loose and scattered, the deepening of the feeling, the internal structure, and the formation of a whole group, do not pay attention to the scientific nature of the work, but strive for the straightforward expression of the emotional image of the color expression.

From Liu Youju's paintings, we can feel that the painter is completing it with a pen in a hazy consciousness, relying on a sense of freedom. In another abstract and illusionary work, "Boundless", the silver blue mountains, clouds, and water blend together. You don't have to judge the rationality of their spatial location, only feel that they are a concentration of time and space. Just like the initial nebula state of the universe, but they exist and have the reality of life. These works reveal the irrational creative mentality of the painter towards the primitive nature, and only in this creative mindset can he promote the illusionary language of his big thinking mapping.

The artistic images in Liu Youju's illusion works have two interesting directions: the creation of pen and ink imagery and the natural combination of pen and ink. In 2013, the works were naturally created with pen and ink, with an abstract style. In 2014, most of the works were created with pen and ink imagery, with Impressionist characteristics. But it is also often used interchangeably. All pens are extremely rough and exhibit the volume and spatial hierarchy of objects in a block structure. The painter broke through the basic concept of line modeling in traditional Chinese painting in terms of expression concepts and methods, introducing certain techniques of impression and abstract painting, as well as modern art expression concepts. The painter's brushstrokes are both rich and unified. Various ink blocks and color blocks intersect to create radiance, and directly express objects and spatial sense. For example, in the work "Impressions of the Lotus Smoke", this kind of ink is particularly vividly used, creating a prerequisite for expressing the mysterious scene where emotions and scenery blend together. The objects generated under the painter's pen are extremely interesting. Showing the brilliance of artistic perfection. In terms of expression techniques, there is no deliberate deformation of modern schools, nor the meticulous carving in traditional Chinese and foreign painting. Everything is so simple and unadorned, displaying unique artistic charm in obscurity, in ideas, and in fantasy.

(2)

The brushstrokes and block structures used in the artist's works are primitive and wild, like stones drifting from the depths of the universe, dignified and full of vitality. The full composition has a strong expansion tension, and the floating and dynamic scenery clouds and shadows create a vivid contrast with the sculptural and timeless characters. Remind people of their dream home.

A painter's work requires agility, which endows the brush with magical expression and stimulates the creation of artistic life. Indeed, when emphasizing creativity, I have always opposed sacrificing local culture at the cost.

Art is a spiritual way of life. Contemporary art is a discourse and way of discourse in contemporary life. It must be innovative and in sync with the development of the times, not rigidly copying tradition. Personality cannot be replicated, and it should be in harmony with the times. If you feel like you're doing the right thing, stick to it, don't be soft hearted and lose your true nature. Liu Youju's creations place great emphasis on abstraction and color visual effects. This kind of performance is very difficult, and if it is a bit unpleasant, it will be scrapped. It is precisely because of the difficulty that his paintings have a Chinese charm and a sense of modernity. If you are interested in this, you can continue to delve deeper into it in order to achieve a higher level of sophistication. It is important not to repeat oneself, and the "freshness" of the image is far greater than the "familiarity" of the image. It's not difficult to draw well. It is not easy to draw with difficulty and moderate ease. The most difficult thing is to achieve a state of freedom, which is even more thought-provoking.

Most of Liu Youju's paintings are filled with passion and impulses. If there is no passionate creation, it is equivalent to telling lies. When creating, one must think of what others have not thought of and speak of what others have not said. Art is not entirely grasped according to logic. Art relies on sensibility, drawing one's own feelings, and sensibility is a fundamental requirement of aesthetics. If drawn too solidly, it will only distort. Because what artists need to think about is ideological, emotional, and spiritual things, it requires the more transcendence and "transcendence from the outside" as well. It is a metaphysical spiritual realm and an innate spiritual energy. Literature and art should express life and a spiritual force of human beings.

For painters, art is a belief, a spirit, and a dream. If you love it, it will love you and accompany you to the kingdom of freedom. No matter where life takes you, you should not throw away your paintbrush. Don't forget to think with a paintbrush when doing anything. The work is your figure and your soul.

The detailed portrayal of specific images is no longer meaningful. In Liu Youju's paintings, it is just an emotional mental symbol. The light sense of the picture is rhythmic rhythm, and the color is the non objective application of mental colors. The light sense is not visual intuition but the design of inner light.

The hallucination of the mind prompted Liu Youju to create.

The process of language and thought is a homogeneous process. There is no thought without language, nor is there language without thought. People's ideas and thoughts must be communicated with others through certain language forms. The exchange of ideas and emotions between a painter's artwork and the audience is achieved through the artistic language contained in the artwork. The first level of this artistic language is the external intuitive style, and the second level is the transmission of potential concepts, which is the reflection of ideas and thinking.

Derived from the illusion of ideas, the illusionary painting language is used to reveal the painter's true understanding of human and nature, which is the basic connotation of Liu Youju's illusory painting art. The straightforward perception of the painter's works and existence is the innovative consciousness that breaks through the traditional artistic framework, the new interpretation of the traditional aesthetic spirit made by modern concepts and passion. His painting art has quickly gained recognition in the current art world because he found a personal iconic painting language with his talent, persistence, and diligence, which is the realm of illusionary language and poetry.

Hegel has a famous saying: While ancient people created gods, they lived in the atmosphere of poetry. Liu Youju lived in a spiritual atmosphere while creating. This poetry and spirituality directly guide the reader into the painter's spiritual thinking, which I believe is a reflection of great thinking. Strictly speaking, painting never possesses the authenticity of objective objects, and using painting as a means to express the true understanding and thinking of things does not depend on the deliberate description of objective objects. The function of painting is to convey potential concepts and consciousness. So in the works of painters, they often only capture the overall impression of the chaotic state of objects, leaving them in a state of non real existence. Painters use colors to evoke mountain light, cloud shadows, and flowers and plants, and use these images as external extensions of rational thinking about the vast world, forming a potential big thinking mapping. I thought this was the establishment of Liu Youju's artistic philosophy that could possibly embody the illusion of artistic language.

To be honest, only the artistic language that hallucinates and illusions the ideas generated by the persistence in life and nature symbolizes a sublimation and a clarity. In 2013, Liu Youju's cultural journey to New Zealand sparked his creative impulse. When he faced the colorful rocks and flowing water, he saw a mysterious region from afar that preserved the harmony between humans and nature, and nurtured a primitive passion for life. In Liu Youju's works, from his portrayal of the unpredictable natural scenery, we seem to approach this mysterious connotation, feel the surge of passion, and appreciate the harmonious beauty of life and nature coexisting. All of this originally belonged to each and every one of us, and was an innate emotion, but for various reasons, I forgot and distanced myself from these beautiful experiences. As a Western figure pointed out, fearful busyness and fear of busyness are depriving humanity of its most fundamental material nature.

In New Zealand, it is known as the last pure land of humanity, with the purest snow mountains, blue sky, and white clouds; In every strand of air floated tranquility and depth. Reading Liu Youju's works, while appreciating the formal beauty of the works, will definitely trigger people's reflection on truth, goodness, and beauty.

We say that Liu Youju's illusion paintings have the characteristics of latent concepts and big thinking mapping, which also stems from the irrational factors of the painter's creative mentality. Human feelings, impulses, uncontrollability, and subconscious decisions all have irrational factors or unconscious colors. Reading Liu Youju's paintings, we can perceive that what he draws, how he draws, and how he uses his pen and color, are all extremely natural. Out of nature and understanding, a large amount of ink and brush is unintentionally completed. This irrational factor can also be said to originate from the traditional Chinese philosophy of "stillness" and "emptiness".

The great Austrian psychologist Freud of the 20th century believed that "the most profound root of human behavior, motivation, and emotions is irrationality, and mainly unconsciousness..." Nature is inherently inherent in its rigorous logic, but it is unconscious, and human reason and will are inevitably ultimately limited to the natural attributes of unconsciousness. The hallucination of Liu Youju's ideas, creative mentality, and works is precisely the awakening of human return to natural attributes. The term "illusion", as a specific concept on the aesthetic level, was proposed by Liu Youju, indicating that he had already consciously approached the essential meaning of "irrationality" and "unconsciousness".

Liu Youju poured a thousand words into the world with his own brush. He infused his philosophical cultivation, political inclination, cultural knowledge, ideological quality, will and temperament, first and foremost with conscience, wisdom and talent, life experience, personal experience and ideals, people's expectations... rational and emotional, joy and sorrow, love and hatred, all of the emotional life into boiling blood, cascading towards the scene! The work has been released, and every color and line on the screen will give people a strong infectious force.

(3)

In Liu Youju's works, the use of color is extremely mature. The use of contrasting colors and primary colors is particularly exciting, reflecting the pure and elegant charm of Chinese painting. This full composition, strong color ink, and bold brushstroke are no longer just small scenes, but bring the audience a broad feeling and a unique religious aura of illusionary light.

Liu Youju's illusion works, although possessing modern consciousness, absorbed certain factors from Western painting and modern schools, and re examined the claims of traditional Chinese painting; Although he uses the mapping of big thinking and the technique of latent concepts to express his true feelings towards humans and nature; Although his paintings are full of passion and the ink color is fluctuating, the artistic conception that his works ultimately display to the audience is still "emptiness" and "stillness", expressing the highest level of traditional Chinese aesthetics that "heaven and earth coexist with me, and all things are one with me". His works downplay the vivid portrayal of objects and shapes, using illusionary symbolic language as a carrier of potential concepts to directly enter the artistic realm, thus establishing a successful path to the palace of art.

There is no clear boundary between points and lines, lines and surfaces in Liu Youju's works, which are complex and feel that each belongs to its own; Mountains and clouds, clouds and water, shuttle back and forth, avoiding distance and size like a vast expanse of energy. As Mr. Su Dongpo once said in his poem, "Silence leads to group movements, and emptiness leads to the absorption of myriad realms." Void, stillness, emptiness, and brightness are all beings in an ideal that transcends time and space without barriers, and they are spiritual pleasures. This realm is also the illusion and authenticity of Liu Youju's painting art.

American art critic John Sarris said that the visual language of Liu Youju's works is neither Eastern nor Western, but based on the great beauty of humanity, showcasing the latest trends in contemporary world art.

Huang Mingqian, the founder of the Desert Painting School, believes that Liu Youju advocates for "diversified innovation", transforming the elegant lines of traditional Chinese painting into highly tensile, bold and dazzling heavy colored ink; Traditional Chinese painting often has similar and ethereal composition techniques, creating a magical composition that is full of vitality and passion; Transforming the aesthetic orientation of traditional Chinese painting from emphasizing light and advocating ink and wash, creating a masterpiece spanning the East and West.

Wang Qiyin, a mentor at the School of Fine Arts at Tsinghua University, said that Liu Youju's forward-looking and revolutionary art can rival American abstract expressionist painters Robert Mathewell and De Cunning.

Art theorist Zhang Fulin believes that Liu Youju has a very broad perspective, bringing many good things from ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad, showcasing his personality, daring innovation, and using them for himself. He has a very broad mind.

One of the leading figures in contemporary oil painting, Guo Beiping, Vice President of the Oil Painting Academy of the Chinese National Academy of Painting, said: Liu You Bureau stands at the forefront of crossing the law, integrating the essence of Eastern and Western cultures, crossing ancient and modern times, crossing ink colors, crossing the East and West, crossing time and space, breaking the long-standing confrontation between Chinese and Western cultures and the myth that cannot be integrated.

Liu Youju's illusion painting takes shape by expressing abstract objects through the material elements of poets, painters, and calligraphers. The expressionist is referred to as "image": appearance, image, phenomenon, symbol. Elephants are different from elephants. The world itself is imaged by observation. Like a replica of an elephant. A first-class artist has become his character, so he attracts imitations and wants to make it look like him. In only one sense, it can be said that first-class artists are imitating: not just the ready-made scenery, nor the works of predecessors, but the moment when they copy the world into its own image. The things we deal with in daily life are called "objects" or "objects". Things have images, and images belong to things; The first thing we perceive is the object, not just the color, lines, or smell. If it is simple and lacks the image of an object, it becomes light and ethereal, like a phantom. At this point, our feeling also becomes light and ethereal, almost like an illusion. This is my understanding of Liu Youju's illusory painting. It is precisely Liu Youju's diligent creation that further expands and sublimates the poetic connotation of his illusion painting.

Liu Youju explores the new changes in Chinese painting. Along his creative path, he constantly seeks breakthroughs in themes, composition, colors, and ink techniques, injecting fresh elements into Chinese painting in various aspects. At the same time, he continuously integrates and digests these fresh elements into the system of Chinese painting. Especially in his recently created works such as "The Prosperous Age of the Tang Dynasty", the grand and magnificent grandeur, the arbitrary strokes and ink strokes, the strong and full colors, and the tense composition all make us see that the art of Shi Qi has entered a new realm, and also let us see that the revival of contemporary Chinese painting is no longer an unattainable dream.

Liu Youju is a painter who is not bound by rules. He has long been committed to breaking through and expanding the traditional language framework of Chinese painting, while also incorporating the expression forms of Western modern art, exploring a modern ink color expression path that highlights tension and dynamism. He never restricts or fixes his creative themes, and constantly changes and surpasses his existing style and form. His works, under strong visual impact, reflect his own creative mood of individuality and express his sincere and original emotions.

Liu Youju is also a painter who adheres to and expands on traditional forms of expression. In today's open and diverse international perspective, he strives to seek the rebirth of traditional spirit in his art and makes personalized explorations for the innovation of contemporary Chinese painting. In his creation, he not only relied on the traditional pen and ink programs of hooking, texturing, dyeing, and dots, but also made profound innovations in the structural organization, pen and ink expression, and color language of the screen, restructuring and integrating various expressive elements. In its thick, atmospheric, and cheerful ink colors, the vibrant vitality and surging life appeal are revealed.

(4)

The traditional Chinese culture has been passed down continuously, with a long and extensive history. Its rich nourishment is enough to nourish every artist under her, but at the same time, it may become a heavy burden for many artists to develop and innovate. The value of Liu Youju's art lies in his pioneering and exploratory spirit, as well as his innovative spirit of constantly surpassing oneself. He has opened up a creative path that transcends traditional modes and integrates Chinese and foreign artistic expressions. As a persistent innovator in artistic creation, he maximizes the richness and diversity of ink color language through a form of expression of world modernity, embracing the vast and passionate spiritual realm of traditional Chinese culture, and communicating with it.

Both Impressionist and Abstract painters often share a common aspiration: to create a magical world; And I firmly believe that although it is called an illusion, there is a way of self existence, and we observe the same reality. What sets Liu Youju apart from his predecessors is clearly his greater and more conscious acceptance of the collision between Eastern and Western cultures. Obviously, Liu Youju does not want his world to be abandoned. His paintings are always grand and magnificent, with a lively and colorful atmosphere, as if there is an inexhaustible spring of life lurking everywhere in his fantasy world. And beyond that, he sometimes uses his wonderful calligraphy to convey more cultural significance. Whether in "Memory", "A Separation of Waters", or "The Age of Phimony", the author seems to be conveying a certain message to us.

As is well known, the visual orientation is a characteristic of Western painting. Although Chinese painting and Western painting are both plastic arts, their essential attributes differ greatly due to their differences in national character, cultural traditions, thinking methods, tool materials, and other aspects. Generally speaking, Chinese painting takes philosophy and poetry as its spiritual source, while Western painting takes science and religion as its spiritual source; Chinese painting takes calligraphy as the main technical subject, while Western painting takes sketch and color as the main technical subject. Therefore, Chinese painting emphasizes aura, realm, and brushwork, while Western painting emphasizes visual form and color. In other words, the advantage of Chinese painting lies in its spiritual cultural connotation, while the advantage of Western painting's plastic arts lies in its materiality. Liu Youju's illusion painting successfully combines the two into one, forming its ethereal and colorful visual effect.

The foothold of Chinese painting is ethics, which regards painting as a way of expressing one's spirit and emotions. Its thinking logic is both this and that, allowing one to persist in it; The foothold of Western painting, on the other hand, is epistemology, which regards painting as simulating nature and reproducing objective forms of expression. Its thinking logic is either this or that, and extreme things will inevitably turn around. Therefore, Chinese painting pursues the unity of heaven and man, and the integration of things and me. It is not blindly concrete or abstract, but rather wandering in the image of "the beauty lies between similarity and non similarity" ("similarity" is objectively and truly described, "non similarity" is subjectively and freely expressed), and holds a binary attitude towards form and color that is neither detached nor detached; Western painting, on the other hand, went from blindly pursuing concrete forms before the 20th century to suddenly turning around and pursuing abstract forms after the 20th century, presenting a reverse transformation from approaching nature to deviating from nature. The evolution of Western plastic arts, whether it is classical realism before the reversal, modern abstraction, comprehensive collage after the reversal, or even images, behaviors, installations, and so on, although there is a huge contrast in their external forms of expression, their internal focus is all implemented in the material representation factors, and the strong visual orientation of the single visual sense that affects people is unquestionable. Of course, the visual orientation is not entirely unattainable. In fact, certain visual orientations in Western plastic arts have indeed brought new visual enjoyment and surprises to humanity. Some Western modernist or postmodern works, boldly conceived and created by genius, although they affect people's visual senses, sometimes carry certain cultural connotations and can also affect people's hearts, which cannot be completely erased and can be partially absorbed and reasonably borrowed. However, despite this, the materialistic visual orientation emphasized in Western painting is vastly different from the spiritual ink taste and cultural connotations emphasized in Chinese painting.

Therefore, it is undoubtedly unfair for the exhibition mode to use the visual orientation of Western painting as the evaluation standard to demand Chinese painting, just like in the Olympic arena, The absurdity of having a skilled gymnast compete with a strength wrestler in wrestling is evident. Although both are competitive sports, and although the former requires strength and the latter requires skill, their focus is completely different.