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梦中景：逃逸之路 文/周文翰
中文： 构成曾健勇绘画的物件、生命、标记包括以下几大类： 物件：一类是衣服、帷幕、伞这一系列日常物品，它们具有遮蔽的功能，是一种保护性的存在，让主角得以在心理上保全。另一类是书本、黑领巾、十字架之类带有强烈社会意识形态性的标记性物件的出现，这些是他近期创作的一个关键词。书本具有一定的扩张意义，它们含有的知识信息曾经意味着了不起的伟力，但在互联网时代已经变得有点虚弱。而十字架等关联宗教仪轨和依归有关的符号、仪式场景是他近期的兴趣所在。宗教图示、符号的存在是象征性的，即便那些看似与此无关的写实的物件，比如那棵树上缠绕的绳索，似乎也在隐喻没有具体的发力者但又无所不在的社会规训体系。 动物：这些动物可以大致三个系列，狗、猫之类日常宠物或者可轻易接触的动物，他们与主角长期相伴并已经拟人化，其次则是鸟、蝴蝶这样兼具脆弱和自由的动物。鸟是风景的游弋的观察者，在曾健勇的绘画中，它们似乎不是翱翔在大地和天空的自由生物，而是丧失了强有力的野性的、似乎是半野生半豢养的鸟类，围着人物周游、背离、凝视的寄生状态的生物。蝴蝶等昆虫则是脆弱、短暂的生命，他们依赖那些美好而短暂的花朵、植物之间，是装饰的装饰。他也用鸟、蝴蝶的印象和身体之间的距离来暗示空间。第三类是动物的骨骼解剖图，那似乎是在强化一种建立在人类进化链条上的连续性历史的联想。 植物：最初是在人物画中出现的局部植物枝条——画家或许仅仅是为了装饰，但这些被截肢的植物、截断的竹竿都意味着与生长之根的隔离，他们是人为的自然，后来出现的被捆扎、牵系的植物，所有这些都在暗示一种外力的存在导致的暂时和中断感。 风景：终于，出现了成片的风景。尽管我见识过艺术家本人在拍摄风景摄影并关注水和植物交界之处的波纹的造型，但他的风景画给人最强烈感受的还在梦幻的氛围中。风景在曾健勇这里也不是确定无疑的存在，而是轻微晃动的，接近梦境，但是也能打捞起现实经验的几丝触感。这与两个方面的处理有关，一是由于色彩带给的绘画的那种不真实感——他的用色让画面与实物出现第一次游离，其次，则是场景上他喜欢的是那种梦中出现或者类似梦中场景的水景之类，传达出的一种不稳定、不真实的感触。 现在，让我们来面对他的肖像画中最为那显著的“生理印记”：破碎的眼球和身体上的创伤。曾健勇说画中人的身体创伤的最初视觉经验来自他在医院的仪器里看到父亲的心脏充血的时候与血管之间不断扩张、收缩形成的视觉图像。我注意到，在开始的一系列作品中，这些伤口被呈现为较大的裂痕和发炎一样的斑块形状，它尝试用披麻皴的手法来处理其中的裂口，但逐渐他有意减少了斑块而强化割裂效果，那些伤口演变成兼有割伤和淤肿效果，给人更为尖锐的感觉。 画家对破裂的眼球的最初表现是一系列没有眼白的空洞眼睛，逐渐他让瞳仁和身体一样开裂，可以设想这种破碎可能来自外部的打击、自残或者疾病的结果。我想这是一种心理病变的隐喻，破裂的眼球最重要的指向却是——他的画中人在排斥镜像阶段最重要的信息接收器。有科学家的研究已经指出儿童在六岁之前最发达的感官就是视觉，而破裂的眼球意味这他们只能更为零散的接受来自外部的信息——这是一种拒绝吸收社会信息也就是拒绝长大的姿态？因为被伤害才导致之后的自残？或者，这意味着来自眼睛反射的镜像一开始就是扭曲之扭曲？ 在视觉上，破碎的眼球与童稚的身体构成一种矛盾的张力，它更像是缓慢的心理内部的裂解的结果，而身体的伤口则是来自外部的直接施加。这或许就是曾健勇绘画中存在的“自我的他性”的秘密：每一张绘画的主角的貌似完整性都被这些内部、外部的因素所干扰、破坏，暗示着内部的多重自我以及外来施力者的存在。 这些伤口可以说是既成世界——成人世界？——加之于儿童的一种印记，或者说，这是“权力力学”施加的生理符咒——如米歇尔·福柯所言，现代社会的政治和经济制度都是以规训权力为基础的，学校、工厂、医院、精神病院、军队等规训组织都在不断用各种监视、检查、训练和奖惩制度来对人们的身体和意识进行“规范”，或者说，这也是所谓“社会化”的要求，人们为了更好地“适应社会”必须不断被学习如何分配空间和时间、调校身体的动作和姿势、接受各类训练、教导，并有专门机构对人们的活动、行为、表现或能力不断监视、监督、检查、比较、考核、等级化，并设定一些关于什么才是“正常”或“好”的标准、规范，从而对个人作出评价、分类或对个别人士予以排斥，并迫使人就范，塑造出一具具“驯顺的肉体”。 曾健勇绘画的有趣之处是，这些人物的伤口在暗示这种规训造成的心理阴影，同时，他们也处于一种较为私密的家庭、同伴的环境中，将他们置于亲密关系的保护之下，在这两者之间，则是逃逸出来来的那些色彩、梦幻、童趣以及风景。他近期的“规训者”系列也是如此，由于把在家庭中“演示”规训关系植入艺术史上的既有宗教绘画图式中，似乎稍稍减弱了规训的残酷性，让它成为可以从容对视的艺术景观。（静笃斋2013）
English：
A dream scenario: the road to escape By Zhou Wenhan
Zeng Jianyong's artwork depicts the following objects, lives, signs and symbols: Objects: First, there are daily objects such as clothes, curtains and umbrellas. They provide shelter and protection and give the protagonists psychological security. Then there are books, black scarves and crosses - key words in his recent paintings that carry strong ideological marking. Books have broad implications: they used to signify remarkable power with the information and knowledge they carry, but now, in the age of the Internet, their status has been weakened. The cross and symbols related to religious ceremonies and conversion are his recent interests. These religious signs and illustrations, and even objects that look unrelated to religion at first sight, are symbolic. For example, the rope wrapped around a tree is a metaphor of the social training system that exists all around us, although it is difficult to identify its handlers. Animals: There are three kinds of animals in his paintings. The first are pets, such as dogs and cats and other animals that are easily approachable. They have lived with the protagonists for a long time and have been personified. The second are animals that are free and fragile at the same time, such as birds and butterflies. Normally, birds are flying observers of the landscape. But in Zeng Jianyong's paintings, they are no longer the free creatures that soar in the sky. Having lost their energetic wild nature, they are the parasitic, half-wild and half-domesticated animals, looking at, circling around and shying away from the characters. Butterflies and other insects are fragile, short-lived creatures. They live on beautiful but vanishing flowers and bushes. They are the ornaments of ornaments. In addition to this, the artist also uses the visions of birds and butterflies and their distance to the characters to suggest a sense of space. The third type is the bone structures of animals, which seem to suggest a connection based on evolution. Plants: Parts of branches first appeared in his figure paintings, perhaps for the sole purpose of decoration. However, the branches and bamboo sticks are broken by people, implying a separation from their roots. Bundled and tied plants emerge at a later stage. Together, they indicate discontinuity and interruption caused by outside forces. Landscape: Finally, there are large areas of landscape. I have seen the artist taking landscape pictures and paying attention to the ripples around water plants. But what impressed me most is the illusionary fantasy he creates in his paintings. Landscape is no longer an undoubted existence; it is blurry, close to an illusion, but bears touches of realism. His choices in the following two aspects help construct this illusionary image. First, his use of colors separates the picture and the reality, as the colors bring a sense of unreality to his art. Second, he is fond of using scenes that appear in dreams or water scenery that looks like a dream, both of which seem unstable and unreal. Now, let us face the most obvious "physical markings" of his figure paintings: splintered eyeballs and physical trauma. Zeng Jianyong once said that his first visual experience of the physical trauma he represents in his characters came from the image of his father's pumping heart and the contracting and expanding blood vessels that he saw through a medical device in a hospital. In his first series of paintings, the wounds are depicted as big cuts or infections. But later, he depicts infections less and puts more emphasis on cuts instead. The wounds are swollen, making a much stronger visual impact. The artist's first depictions of splintered eyeballs are a series of blank eyes without the sclera. Later, he shows cracks in the pupils, as well as on the body, which, as you may guess, could be the result of external attacks, self-inflicted injuries or illness. They are, I believe, metaphors for psychological problems and illness. More significantly, the splintered eyeballs imply a rejection of their function as the body's most important receiver of information at the Mirror Stage. Scientific research indicates that the eyes are a child's most developed organ by the time it reaches the age of six. The splintered eyeballs mean that they can only receive fragmented information from the outside world. Is this a refusal to absorb social information and thus a refusal to grow up? Or is this a self-inflicted injury resulted from being injured? Or could it mean that the images reflected through these eyes are distortions of distortions? Visually, the splintered eyeballs and the childlike bodies construct dynamic contradictions and tensions, with the splintered eyeballs likely being the result of a fragmentation of the inner world, while the physical injuries on the body are caused by outside forces. Such contradictions and tension, perhaps, are the secret of "the Otherness of the ego" in Zeng Jianyong's paintings. That the characters' superficial completeness is disrupted and damaged by such internal and external elements suggests the existence of several egos and outside forces. The wounds could be said to be markings imposed upon children by the established, adult world. Or, in other words, it could be a physical curse cast by the "physics of power". As Michel Foucault points out, the establishment of political and economic institutions in a modern society depends on the power of training, where schools, factories, general and mental hospitals, army and other training institutions use all kinds of surveillances, inspections, awards and punishments to "regulate" both the body and mind of the people. The demand for "socialization" also plays a part. In order to "get better used to society", people have to be taught how to allocate time and space, control their gestures and behaviors, and accept education and training of different sorts. Special institutions constantly monitor, inspect, compare, evaluate and grade people's activities, behaviors, performances and abilities. They set the standards on what is "normal" or "good", based on which they evaluate and put individuals in categories or exclude them, forcing them to surrender, thereby producing "tamed bodies". What is interesting about Zeng Jianyong's artwork is that, while the trauma of the characters refers to the psychological shadow cast by such training, the characters themselves are placed in a private environment of families and friends, in which they are protected by those intimate relationships. Sandwiched between these two are the escaping colors, dreams, fantasies, childhood innocence and landscapes. Such is the case with Zeng's recent "Trainer" series. As he puts on "a showcase" of training in a family setting and correlates images to those that appear in art history, the picture itself seems less cruel and becomes a friendlier artistic vision.(JingDuZhai2013) |
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