Lake and trees in 2014 No.1

Xu Jiacun
1977 Born in Laiwu, Shandong Province
2000 Graduated from Shandong Normal University Institute of Fine Arts
2000-2005 Tibet voluntary work, taught at the Higher Teachers College in Lhasa, Tibet
2008 Master’s degree of Fine Arts from Capital Normal University Institute and under Mr. Liu Jinan’s guidance
The teacher of Chinese Painting Department of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, and the researcher at the Institute of Modern ink of the Capital Normal University

In traditional Chinese paintings, trees always represent the existence of life. With trees as the theme, Xu Jiacun employs his ink language filled with subjective feelings to convey his reflection on “life, death” and “existence”.
In Xu Jiacun’s paintings, he depicts trees in different postures, flourishing or withered. Tree crown stretches toward the dark sky in a tearing and flaring way, silently exclaiming existence and tension of life. Pure ink language fills the whole picture. Wild but not random brush strokes, full and overflowing ink, interspersed lines interwoven and create a strong sensed presence. Different from sharp contrast between white and black in previous years, he introduces new colors in his painting. Light and dark blue intervenes with black color, adding a layer of mysterious melancholy to the picture. These ink lines combination for ms a visual image that seems to have some kind of spiritual inspiration, awakening our subconscious feelings for it.
Xu Jiacun advocates “stepping out of the studio”, which is very reminiscent of sketching in western art, but his creation is not simply depicting natural trees. His work has a feature of “empathy” in Chinese traditional culture. His painting expresses the artist’s own deep feelings for nature and his plentiful inner emotion. The influence of Qi and Lu culture left him profound traditional literacy, and his experience of teaching in Tibet deepened his ref lection on life. All these have paved the way for Xu Jiacun’s unique personal artistic style. Abundant cultural background and rich life experience, supplemented by his solid painting skills gained through professional training, makes the most common thing and the most common scenery become Xu Jiacun’s most powerful language to express life and existence.
Trees have no “permanent shape but have perpetual rule”, so it is with ink painting. After mastering the “perpetual rule”, Xu Jiacun puts aside all ordinations of traditional ink and fully taps aesthetic potential of ink itself. The flying ink strokes, seemingly real and imaginary scenes, are different from traditional Chinese landscape paintings and also different from real time-space in western landscape paintings. Xu Jiacun explores a new world in Chinese traditional ink paintings.
—Yang Zhige