Having mixed in contemporary art “circles” for a long enough time now, the sight of those works one often comes across—symbolism rife with over-used, traditional “classic red” and subject matter rampant with emphasis on the realities of the explosive pace of social transformation—will always, on some level, leave me visually bored and physiologically offended. Beyond the fact that these are qualities that constitute an esthetically fatigued and derivative form, they are also often mistakenly seen to be the distinguishing features of Chinese contemporary art: a notion that can result in self-obsession, even self-intoxication. The fickleness of man’s affections is one of his inherent temperaments, and correspondingly explains the uni-directionality; the homogenized, narrow, and linear thinking; and the widespread, philistine tendency toward sociology that frequently mark the theory, language, and subject matter of Chinese contemporary art. The dramatic inflation and subsequent burst of the art market bubble in recent years have further exacerbated the submission of “contemporary art” to the great forces of economic interests—leading to all sorts of grotesque and varied wonders, all of which have exposed the true power of capital in a relentless, uninterrupted outpouring of desire.

But when I face Ouyang Chun, taking in this series, born out of years of work in Xi'an and Beijing, I am suddenly refreshed by what glimmers before my eyes. This feeling not only comes from Ouyang Chun’s natural passion for and dedication to painting—for he is truly in his element—but also from his consideration, questioning, and exploration of problems related to art itself. From his interview we can already clearly make out his stance and attitude with regard to art and to life, as well as his disdain and resulting disregard for the Chinese contemporary art “scene.” He says, “I personally believe a big problem with Chinese contemporary art today is the frequent departure from a loyalty to true, inner satisfaction and personal circumstance; art becomes a kind of managed [in the sense of business operations] form.” In one sense, the statement arises out of the artist’s own self-confidence and stubborn will. In another sense, it implies his intentional avoidance of the so-called “biz”—his unwillingness to involve himself in the “carnival of reality,” opting instead to drift through the world simply, honestly, and purely. He is happy to work from the heart, to follow The Way, and nothing beyond that.

Perhaps being overly “this-worldly” (“rushi”: as opposed to “otherworldly,” or “chushi”) makes it easy for an artist to become too deeply immersed in reality, losing himself within it. But if he approaches reality grounded in personal truth and emotional experience, the painting process may stand a chance of maintaining its fidelity to internal fulfillment, and in turn revealing facets of individual existence. As I gaze upon Ouyang Chun's paintings, I fall in love with fragmented works like Luminescence, Spirits, Happy Tips, and Elements. These paintings offer the viewer an expansive array of information, all of which has been dutifully noted and absorbed by the artist. They are filled to the brim with scattered pieces of image upon image, touched by Ouyang Chun’s awareness and gaze; history, memory, major events, characters, erotica, war, plants, and animals, along with supplies and utensils from everyday life, are all brought to bear as if by a single easy stroke, with almost offhandedly dexterous ease. Ouyang Chun has wantonly pieced together and dislocated everything all at once, making up a sort of realistic "story-board”: the kind that would normally yield a striking dramatic plot; but the audience is in fact hard-pressed to find any clues or logical relationships that might indicate a true “plot”—and in this very confusion lies the absurdity of Ouyang Chun’s paintings. It is a kind of intense contrast, a contradictory space of imagination: a subversion of the integrity of what painterly creation once was, a rebellion against all classic subject matter. I suspect that this is deliberate, and that Ouyang Chun has intentionally—through an unadorned method, through childlike graffiti—taken an all-encompassing data set of images and processed it, simplified it, and in turn interspersed its constituents, superimposing them into a pluralized arrangement, and allowing the context therein to emanate with the tension of a matrix and the beauty of true chaos. Thus, taking into account all of the different pieces within Ouyang Chun's schematic structure, there is a sort of reconstructive visual effect: one that is both documentary and fictional in its nature. It provides an intuitive perspective with a style all its own, spurring on a kind of transcendent dialogue and mutual questioning between viewer and author.

Seeing Ouyang Chun’s creative work as a unique phenomenon in contrast to the work of other young artists, I do believe his practice is connected in some way to the development of technology today, especially with regard to the evolution and popularization of new ways of capturing and experiencing images, as well as the increasingly important role of the Internet in work environments and in daily life. As we continue to collect information and attempt to make sense of our society—as we observe the world and make our judgments—a change is occurring in the way in which we understand and express the very act of watching, as well as the experience of being watched. When young people today obtain and process information, their experience is, more often than not, mediated by a screen (the TV, the camera, the video camera, the computer). For young artists, the source and basis of schemas for creative work has shifted from “life-sketches” dependent on a “depth of engagement” (the modus operandi of the generation of artists preceding them) to “screens” as resources. It is through screens that young artists obtain the images they will use to create. And so, from this perspective, Ouyang Chun's artistic creations can be seen as modeled off of the concept of "second-hand images.” Separated at intervals from “natural” and “objective” images, “second-hand images” produce the sensation of  a gap. The corresponding fragmentation of experience is exactly the visual and psychological framework of individuals of this era; it is the underpinning of their reality.  

Where will modernization lead us, in an era of fragmentation? Everything has become rapid and bewildering. While the Internet spurs on the fracturing of our perception, further scattering our focus, the way in which young people learn about and pay attention to public issues also evolves. If the Internet were just a flood of information, so large and so much at once that we were unable to process anything at all, then dealing with things would be a little bit easier. But the nature of this fragmented era is such that the act of processing the deluge of information is itself what traps us in our fragmented experience of the world. On the Internet, there is a smoothly running mechanism allowing us to process information and produce feedback. For many, microblogs have already become the key means by which to obtain information; by checking up on links posted by the people you follow—each with his or her own “role” to be played in your virtual existence—you can easily find out what is going on in the world and what shape public opinion is taking. Users can customize their worldviews. No mass media outlet can maintain authority over information anymore in the way that social media can. And with social media and social networking come new social relations—all of which, in turn, influence and impact the independent individual.

Ouyang Chun’s own sociological investigations of reality have nothing on gaudy art, with its exaggeration, distortion, and irony. Rather, he takes those implements, supplies, toys, and pictures—intimately tied to personal, everyday life—and inserts them immediately into the world of the painting, blending and merging simple graphic details. In the process of objective presentation, a certain fondness for the simple charms of certain things and a soft spot for painting do creep in, along with a few memories, hints of nostalgia, and perhaps a touch of something retrospective. As far as thematic structure, however, there is by no means any kind of grand narrative, but rather a truthful and natural kind of portrayal. And there is nothing outside of everyday human existence, only what is fundamentally part of life. What we see in Ouyang Chun’s paintings is an image of extremely routine life, casually offered from the canvas, to the point where viewers will likely form the incorrect impression that the artist has barely lifted a finger—other than to enjoy the sticky sensation of the craft of painting itself, the texture of manual labor, the flavor and fun of personal memories. Good examples of this would be his "Dolls and Dice" series, his works Abracadabra, Witchcraft, Open-Air Cinema, and so on.

But in fact, there is more to it than meets the eye. Ouyang Chun has not deliberately sought out the meaning of objects or of phenomena; he has not made value judgments, nor has he imposed any conventions or restrictions upon painting. And for the artist, this is a test—a kind of challenge. When it comes to artistic expression, that which is seemingly inadvertent in fact takes much energy; only through serious effort can this apparent ease—by which the truest nature of things seems to flow forth from the canvas—be attained, without a trace of cultural reference, no less. This is what frees Ouyang Chun, as an artist, from the painterly bounds of the rest. An artist’s intentional abstention from seeking out the “significance” of objects or of phenomena does not imply that these subjects themselves lack meaning. Rather, art, rooted in the everyday, is perhaps first and foremost the ability to discover the poignant meaning that exists in the midst of the meaningless—the ability to take whatever thing, appearing in whatever place, and see it raised up to a position of utmost importance. In other words, everyday subjects must first be selected and processed by the artist before they can be sublimated, but the process does not necessitate the imposition of meaning upon people and things; rather, meaning shines through in the relationship between those people and those things. It is reflected in life’s circumstances. Perhaps meaning and value are produced out of the most chaotic, the most obscure, the most humble, and the most neutral everydayness. In the present day, this is the new demand placed upon artistic creation.

In the past, we have always over-emphasized art as a “piece” of art, or art as something “relevant.” It is almost as if accurate, practical criticism and precise description are the only premises by which the artist, the work, and the audience can communicate. But in Ouyang Chun's paintings, things transpire in an entirely intermediate space, appearing through stacked layers of meaning, polysemy, and ambiguity. Beginning from a low-to-the-ground perspective, Ouyang Chun uses painting to face head-on and expose very frankly the details of natural, day-to-day life, exploring the fun and magic of simply "being alive.” But the true essence of it all arises out of a sort of refraction, when satisfaction and happiness in the broader sense have been attained and the loss of security, the anxiety, the frustration, and the distress that follow begin to set in. Thus, though the artist does not outwardly explicate the complexities of reality, his creation itself comes to this grand achievement on its own. Distancing himself from the hustle and bustle of reality, Ouyang Chun makes the sort of art in which the details—the tiny ones, where emotions reside—are preserved. This is the language of his paintings, down to their very texture. As one continues to look at his work, these small details will come back again and again; he takes snippets of images, cutting them out of true personal experience, shaking them of his own memories and associations, his own hobbies and personal delights. In this sense, he has found an extremely faithful means by which to represent the inner world of the subjective imagination. The result is a kind of abstract reality, but one projected by the heart—even to the extent that the artist’s fascination with the language of oil painting itself replaces any personal interests to which the work might refer.

I see Ouyang Chun’s as a new approach to processing reality. On the one hand, it is a reflection on the many possibilities of art's typically straightforward projections of reality, leading to an entirely new understanding of the complexity of the subject matter of artistic expression; it is in fact a reconstruction, holding within it the complex imagination-bound relationship between art and reality. On the other hand, he pays attention to the concrete specificity of real life, allowing the true characteristics of daily existence to come through. Such an emphasis on the significance of everyday details has only been made possible with the onset of China's economic rise, and the resulting legitimization of everyday desires as acknowledgeable life goals.  The flavors and contours of commonplace existence, once ignored and suppressed at the hands of modernity’s grand narrative, can move to the center of artistic expression now, and in doing so will endow art with uncommon value and significance. This process of rediscovery—constituted by describing the quotidian and the normal, highlighting trivial realities and consumer values, and addressing individual life histories and day-to-day operations—is being awarded greater and greater prominence. This is not the traditional arrival of some grand “humanistic” theme; it is the forthright tracing out of an individual’s actual, lived experience.

As opposed to an all-out revolt against reality, what is shown through this tracing is a truly dialectical relationship to the real, outside world. Ouyang Chun presents something more than just “images” and the emotions they evoke. He lays out a space before him that is specific, and measurable. Of course, this process is itself inextricable from an era in which the “new logic” of capital prevails, accompanying the shift from the concrete "materiality” of an object-based economy to the psychological “materiality” of abstract and virtual products in the "new economy": the virtual economy. Consumerism has moved beyond its original significance; it is not just about the consumption of concrete goods. Now, consumption is to a high degree a virtual, or emotional experience, taking place in a private world—and in one way or another, this truth has served to stir up many magnificent artistic imaginings.  Contemporary society's defining characteristic is now the paradox and fissure of cultural aesthetic and material comforts, and because of this, artistic creation in a purer sense has become the self-portrayal and narcissism of the humanistic spirit. It is a kind of hungry spiritual consumption, and its object of consumption is itself. Of course, this is only my understanding and interpretation of the logical relationship between Ouyang Chun's art and its surrounding reality; or else it is a kind of exhortation and cross-examination of the low-level substance of mediocrity, accompanied by a rediscovery of everyday life and its potential meaning.

Precisely because Ouyang Chun does not run in art “circles,” and precisely because he takes great pains to cast off the tacit principles of these “circles,” he is able to make manifest the unique expressivity of his artistic practice, taking the helm with unabashed frankness and sincerity. It is also because of this that his works are difficult to define. There are no extremes, no specific allusions to any preformed brands of "significance;" there is just a sort of limbo state of being. This sort of artistic breakthrough, encompassing both self-restraint and self-indulgence, touches a level of emotional and psychological truth as if grown from untouched loneliness and sober self-respect. Or perhaps what Ouyang Chun’s artwork emphasizes is the experience of looking out over uncertain terrain from a place of what is already sheer uncertainty—as opposed to the way in which other works of art might value certainty of meaning. In contrast to other members of today’s generation of young artists in China, he represents a true transformation, a state of being, a new model of visual rhetoric. When fixed modes of being or doing have been crushed and eliminated, pulverized into the dust of an era or of history, do they re-appear, made over completely? In the present moment, living as we do in a vortex of rapid change, we need more than ever to return to our concern for how we will imagine the future. Because, after all, "All That Is Solid Melts into Air."