何红蓓对当代中国妇女内心生活和感情的最新思考
何红蓓最新的系列油画是她一贯的艺术手法的自然发展。
1992年，她在第一次广州艺术双年展上获奖时，她的创作是两个年轻的女孩在使用传统中国乐器。后来，她的“情书”系列描述的是典型的当代中国妇女的内心世界：情爱，耐心和等待，未实现的愿望和欲望，传统与现代之间比以往任何时候都更迫在眉睫的紧张关系。这些画反映了年轻妇女的内心生活，其实现是通过细心而敏感的着色，高超的笔触和形体，和一种独特的和谐与平衡。这些特点都在何红蓓最新创作中展示得淋漓尽致。但何红蓓的创作“倒掉垃圾,放松“也有一些新的重要方面。我们首先注意到的，是画中女性惊人的美。她们的脸是模特形式的，象面具（抵御外部世界侵蚀的盾牌）和敏感面孔的组合，有一种超现实的完美，但看起来又很现代。这正是当代社会对女性的希望-“美”高于一切，而女性面临巨大的压力：要达到这一理想。正如我们不断地被广告告知：最好的实现“美丽”的办法是购物，因为拥有顶级品牌物品至少可以让我们觉得美丽。然而，我们大家都知道，这种做法的后果可能是一个恶性循环;感到必须美的压力，购物，觉得美丽，觉得年老，感到必须美的压力，购物，觉得美丽，从而创造了某些空虚的心灵和头脑。 在极端的情况下，生活成为一串幻觉的肤浅泡沫。这是何红蓓在她最近的作品中勾画的，她绘制了一些有着纸做的头（和大脑）的女性。这些纸做的大脑充满了“虚无”：它们展示的美丽和空虚的结合，正是我们所处的现代消费型社会的特色。和她以前的作品一样，何红蓓作品的特长是她绘画的概念（它们想表达的“信息”），以及高超的绘画技巧。“倒掉垃圾,放松”对天真作出了一种迷人的视觉表达，让人联想起欧洲文艺复兴肖像中的中世纪修女，但是，这些女性又具有非常鲜明的现代中国特色。这样既技巧高超又具有不造作的风格和形式的组合，是比较鲜见的。因此，我们如何能够逃避现代生活的空虚感？何红蓓提出了一种听起来很简单而又很激烈的概念,身体尽量弯曲，倒掉所有的脑海中无用的东西。 这样做的直接后果是放松。不幸的是，清空杂乱思想，把所有的许诺而不提供真正幸福的垃圾从脑子里倒出去，不是那么容易实现的。垃圾吸引昆虫，其中有些是小而凶恶的昆虫，像恶梦中那肮脏的魔鬼。何红蓓的作品令人惊叹地展示了那些女性复杂的面部表情：倒掉垃圾带来的放松和那些小昆虫带来的痛苦和恐惧（也许最终依然不能摆脱心灵中的陷阱）。显然，“倒掉垃圾,放松”具有较高的社会意义，令人深刻思考我们的生活?行为和审美观。这些作品展示了当代华人艺术家高超的创造力和对现代社会视觉化的思考。
By Dirk Herrmann
He Hongpei’s latest reflections on women’sinner life and feelings in China
He Hongbei’s most recent series of oilpaintings are a seamless and consequential development of her work andconsistent approach to art .Already when winning an important award at theFirst Guangzhou Biennale in 1992,the focus of her creation was two young girlsplaying a traditional Chinese musical instrument. Later,her“Painted Letters”describedthe inner life of Chinese women with respect to love,patience andwaiting,unfulfilled wishes and desires,and the ever imminent tension betweentradition and modernity,which is so characteristic for today’s Chinese females.
The key tounderstand these paintings lies in the reflection of the inner life of theyoung women exhibited,articulated by a careful and sensitive coloring,coupledwith high virtuosity of form and brushing,and a certain characteristic harmonyand balance in the composition of the paintings.All of those are virtues thatare equally attributable to He Hongbei’s latest creations.
And yet there are some significant newaspects in He Hongbei’s “Dumping Garbage-Relax” creations. The first thing thatcatches our eyes when looking at the women we are presented is their amazingbeauty. The faces are model-style ,a mix between masks (like a shield thatprotects from the outside world) and sensitive faces, somehow unreal in theirperfection and yet very present in appearance. This is the style that oursociety wants women to be-“beauty” stands above all, and the pressure thatfemales are exposed to in order to be up to this ideal is significant.
As we are constantly taught byadvertisements, “be beautiful” can best be achieved by shopping, sinceconsuming top brand gadgets can make us at least feel beautiful. However , weall know that the consequence of this approach might be a vicious cycle: “feelthe pressure, consume, feel beautiful, get older, feel the pressure, consume,feel beautiful...”,thus creating a certain emptiness at heatand mind. Taken to the extreme, life becomes a shallow bubble of illusions.
This is what He Hongbei outlines in herrecent works, when portraying the women with paper heads (and brains). Thosepaper brains are full of “nothing”, a scaring image of beauty combined with theemptiness which our modern society of consumers can entail. As in previousworks, the strength of He Hongbei’s art lies both in the concept of herpaintings, the “message” that they convey, and the technical realization. “DumpingGarbage-Relax” is a fascinating visualization of innocence, reminding ofEuropean Renaissance portraits of medieval nuns, and yet the females that weare presented with are of a type which is very characteristic of modern China.Not often can we witness such a skilled and also non artificial union of stylesand expressions.
So how can we escape emptiness in today’slife? The concept sounds simple and at the same time radical-bend forward andlet all the useless things that populate our mind fall out. “Relaxation” is theimmediate consequence. But alas, emptying the mind and getting rid of thingsthat promise but do not provide happiness is unfortunately not so easy torealize in practice. Garbage has the attitude to attract insects, and some ofthem are aggressive tiny little things, like filthy devils that populate ournightmares. It is amazing how He Hongbei realizes in the facial expression ofthe portrayed women both the relaxation, provided by dumping garbage, and thepain that is created by the insects that are emerging from the garbage likeforebodes of fear (maybe envisaging to not be able to escape the mind trapafter all).
Clearly “Dumping Garbage –Relax” is of highsocial relevance and leads to intense reflection of our life, behavior andattitudes in the eye of the beholder. The paintings are a high qualitydemonstration of the creativity of Chinese artists and of the relevance ofvisual art for our society.
