SHAO WENHUAN: NON-MOUNTAIN
SHAO WENHUAN: NON-MOUNTAIN
Shao Wenhuan contemplates traditional Chinese culture from an alternative perspective through the long-term series Floating Jade. He takes a section of landscape from a classic ink painting as his source, then digitalises it through 3D imaging to create the landscape we see.
Visually, the mountains and rocks have a high degree of fidelity to reality, akin to photography, but the realistic details only exist in the paintings. Instead of drawing from real life – from what our eyes see – the landscapes in Floating Jade come from an ideal world, one created by the literati’s brush. As virtual synthetic images, they are the opposite of how photography ‘draws from life’, highlighting an anti-logic inherent in the series.
What we see in these images has never existed in the real world, yet they do share a natural relationship with reality and tradition. This sense of familiarity is separated from us by a pool of water, turning the landscape into a lone island and hinting at our awkward relationship with a traditional culture that is at once intimate and distant. This lone isle is, for the artist, both a spiritual home and a utopia that is impossible to reach. Just as traditions are both far and near, full of feelings but also out of reach – and yet in the distance there is a gentle touch.
A realm of dreams, as if nothing has been.
Excerpt from “Searching for a Sense of Belonging in Silent Desolation – on Shao Wenhuan’s New Works from 2015” by Liu Chenxu
邵文欢：无山
邵文欢正进行着的长远计划《浮玉》系列作品，是其对传统文化进行的另一角度的思考。艺术家通过截取一段古画中的“山水”作为基本原素，然后完全利用3D成像技术（包括材质的数字化）完成影像中的山水，没有任何现实贴图。
在视觉上，合成后的山石具有摄影高度的再现性，但这些山石形象似乎只曾经存在于画中。我们现在的写生更多是植根于眼睛所见的再现表达，而《浮玉》中的山水，却来自于文人笔下理想的世界。这种虚拟的合成影像在根源上和“写生”是相反的，但是摄影本身具有写生一般的再现性，更进一步突出了这种反逻辑式的矛盾。
这个系列的作品不可能在现实中存在，但是又和现实、和传统有着天然的联系。这种亲近的感觉被眼前的一泓秋水隔开，山石变成了一座孤岛，似乎暗示着当下我们和传统文化既亲近又疏离的尴尬境遇。这个孤岛是艺术家的精神乐园，也可能是他很难抵达的理想世界。既远又近的传统和现在，抒情又残酷，且充满了温柔的距离感。如梦似境，一切仿佛从未发生。
择自刘晨旭《在万籁俱寂中寻找归属感——评邵文欢2015新作》
