The wind blows through the forest, and there are birds on the branches.
Inadvertently, the tree beside the house went from being desolate in winter to luxuriant in midsummer, and a huge bird’s nest rested on it. The magic of life makes the ordinary countryside colorful.
In Weimei Motan, the painter ups and downs took this as a prototype to create his work “Home”. In the studio of “Floating and Grinding Beach”, he immersed himself in the countryside, using natural colors to outline the beauty of ecology: lotus leaves and fields, reeds playing with smoke and water, and the summer vibes are refreshing.
Shen Fu, formerly known as Chen Fu, was born in the hometown of Zhuangzi – Mengcheng, Anhui. He often calls himself a “crossover artist”. His creations have three realms – “flowers and birds, landscapes, Chinese character painting”, his behaviors have three realms – “painting, film and television, tourism”, his identity spans three realms – painter, art curator, cultural tourism designer.
After more than 30 years away from his hometown, Shen Fu once again planted his dream on the thick soil of Anhui.
Record the era with pen and ink
Shen Fu said, “We came from the land and will eventually return to the land. The attachment to the land is human nature, and the reverence for life is human instinct! It is my responsibility to record the times with a paintbrush, express life, and sing praises to the laborers!”
The artistic dream of ups and downs originated in Mengcheng, Anhui, and was achieved in Beijing and developed overseas.
36 years ago, 21-year-old Shen Fu left his hometown of Mengcheng, Bozhou, to find and perceive the era of Chinese painting and calligraphy. Shen Fu focused on flower and bird painting during his college days, and later went to Beijing to study Chinese landscape painting under the tutelage of Wu Guanzhong’s disciple Yang Yanwen and Li Keran’s disciple Li Baolin. In September 1990, the 25-year-old Shen Fu held a personal exhibition at the Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing. The then chairman of the Chinese Calligraphy Association, Mr. Shen Peng, personally recommended it to the Asian Games Organizing Committee and wrote the “Shen Fu Calligraphy Art Exhibition”. After graduating from the first high-level research class of Beijing Painting Academy in 1999, he majored in landscape and is one of the fourth generation of Chinese and Western painter representatives.
Pen and ink are with the times. A responsible painter must be based on expressing the present moment. Expressing the motherland is exactly what a responsible artist should pursue. “If the Chinese cities and villages are recorded with pen and ink and painted on paper, it must be a large-scale artistic creation, and it is also an unprecedented initiative.” In September 2004, Shen Fu launched the theme of spanning thirty years. Sketching and creating “Chinese Painting·Painting China” national series of art activities, he is the chief planner and secretary-general. At that time, more than 30 well-known national painters selected from more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government gathered in Nanjing. Since then, Chinese painting, painting China, sketching, creating, publishing, and exhibiting have become popular in China for a while. This activity enabled the artist to further find the origin of his creation, greatly mobilized his creative passion and inspiration, and batches of high-level art works came into being. Jin Shangyi, the then chairman of the China Artists Association, called the sketch creation project with the longest time span, the largest lineup of painters, and the highest activity specifications. It has persisted for 18 years and has become a well-known brand of national art activities. Through such activities, a new biography is established for the mountains and rivers of the motherland, expressing Chinese mountains, Chinese waters, Chinese people, Chinese sentiments, and Chinese spirits, not only recording the rapid social changes in China, but also showing the spiritual outlook and humanistic thoughts of the Chinese people in their progress.
In the course of “Chinese painting, painting China”, ups and downs measured the land of the motherland with footsteps, and recorded the landscape of the motherland with brushes. As his insistence for many years, “Chinese Painting·Painting China” has gradually become a mirror showing the appearance of urban and rural areas, constantly recording the changing China.
Leading art with innovation
“How big is the heart, how big is the stage.”
This is Shen Fu’s favorite sentence, which has also become the driving force for him to constantly deny himself and constantly enrich the connotation of painting creation. In the dialogue with nature, he explored more possibilities of art.
Relying on his unique painting talent, innovative ability and seemingly innate pioneering consciousness, Ups and Downs continued to expand in the artistic world of Chinese painting: in the early 1990s, Ups and Downs painted with words and created ‘Xingyishu’. Feng, exploring Chinese character painting, became the forerunner and pioneer of Chinese character painting. He refined the pictograms and understandings in the six methods of Chinese characters, created a visual artistic scene, and broke the barriers for the world to recognize Chinese characters. After living in Eastern Europe as a visiting study, I learned a lot and broadened my horizons. Later, his creations were dominated by plum blossoms, and all of his creations used the brushwork of landscapes into flower and bird paintings, creating a majestic and atmospheric image.
From the earliest Xingyi calligraphy and painting, to the return to tradition in the middle period, to entering nature and focusing on sketching…, the transformations and adjustments again and again are not repeating others, and trying not to repeat yourself.
Record the moment into eternity, and draw the essence of life with a moment of inspiration and unique vision. Ups and downs used the soul to feel the nature, and painted a large number of sketches and landscape paintings. It is precisely because he has traveled all over the country and learned from the strengths of many families that his paintings come from life and make people feel fresh and pleasing to the eye.
“There is a real landscape in the eyes.” The ups and downs of landscape painting has opened up a unique realm. It not only has the foundation of traditional Western oil painting, but also the essence of freehand brushwork in Chinese painting. Sometimes it also has the shadow of Picasso-like Cubism and the dream world of Monet’s colors. In terms of art form, the combination of pen, ink, water and color enhances its freehand brushwork. His “Xingyihua” creation starts from “meaning” to control “shape”, pursues the beauty of concept and artistic conception, and emphasizes the excavation and expression from physical state to mentality.
Painting China and painting the countryside is what he wants to do, and he has put all his efforts into it. He put the relationship between art and life, art and society in a correct way, and he took care of the society and his own perception, and handled the relationship between tradition and innovation in a stable manner. Since 2002, he has held charity exhibitions of calligraphy and painting for children in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Hefei and other places, and has donated nearly 10 million yuan. In the poverty-stricken areas of the old and young, he has successively created three tourist attractions with art as the main element in Taizhou, Zhejiang, Chuzhou, Anhui, and Linzhou, Henan in the form of Internet + art + tourism, benefiting the village, and at the same time in these three scenic spots. He has created an art academy without walls and a big art get out of class that never ends – “China Art Class”.
Spice up the countryside with art
The connection between people and people and cities is a kind of opportunity. Every time I go back to my hometown in Anhui, I will be attracted by the scenery of Mingguang Three Realms in Chuzhou, Anhui. In the eyes of ups and downs, the Three Realms after the rain, the vastness and the delicacy coexist, interpreting the delicate relationship between the sky and the earth, allowing him to see the combination of Eastern and Western cultures. As far as the eye can see, these small mountain villages and small valleys have become the carrier of ups and downs to record nostalgia. Beginning in 2011, he took painting tools and a weary heart from Beijing to Sanjie Town, looking for the Sanjie in his heart.
The reason for everything is because I like it, because I love this land deeply, so I use it very deeply. In the Three Realms, he opened the door to a new world of painting. In the process of creation, he lowered himself to lie on the ground, with the ground, trees, and villages in high positions. Only by observing nature in this way can his paintings be rich in layers. The “Wonderful Scenery” of the Three Realms has created a unique series of works outside the Three Realms. These works are full of warmth and breath of life. They can feel the emotion and affection for their hometown, and can better reflect the artist’s closeness to life, rooting in the people, and establishing a people-oriented orientation. of art.
These influential works from the “Three Realms Outside” series were selected for the Hong Kong Top 500 Global Ink Paintings for exhibition, bringing the small village of Three Realms into the public eye. In addition, he has also attracted many tourists to visit the exhibitions “Beyond the Three Realms” successively in Tokyo, Japan, Nice, France, New York, USA, Hefei, Anhui, and Nanjing, Jiangsu. With the efforts of many art lovers, Sanjie has become a scenic spot full of artistic flavor, and a new path of literature and art poverty alleviation has been explored.
The ups and downs of artistic achievements and artistic poverty alleviation moved the famous performance artist Siqin Gaowa. The art poverty alleviation micro-film “Three Realms Outside” invested and filmed by the Central New Film Group based on him was evaluated by industry insiders as “the first performance in the history of Chinese films”. A micro-movie in which the painter helps the poor and starred in his true colors.”
People always ask: what is painting for?
He started to learn painting at the age of 7, and took up the brush for 50 years. He kept up and down. He held dozens of personal painting exhibitions at home and abroad and published dozens of personal painting collections. Ups and downs uses artistic practice to give the answer: painting for the times, painting for the people, allowing each painter to step out of the self and into the self; out of the studio and into nature. He hopes that artists can be rooted in the people and in life, use art to brighten the countryside, and use culture to help rural revitalization!
After leaving imprints on the land of many cities and villages, the nostalgic complex of ups and downs germinates again. Now, as the artistic director of the Weimei Motan project in Baohe District, Hefei City, he has started a new exploration.
Appreciation of works:
Editor in charge: Gou XiaoqingReturn to Sohu, see more
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