Mi Nuo
I only have me
my fingers and pains
only tearing those
beloved paper
let them go looking for a butterfly
let them vanish from today
——Gu Cheng
The artist Jin Nv had once kept unicorn beetle in her studio. She watched them mating and feeding it humus, witnessing their producing a little immature egg to the white fluffy and heavy giant worm meat, then into pupae, cocoon, and feathering to an adult with a hard shell. She has been infatuated with this process and can also expand her perspectives an independent individual 's growth and every new life, and eventually develops the latest works of this series.
Insects are regarded as lives without delusion, for their birth and evolution are all out of nature, which is also in line with the personality of Jin Nv. She never celebrates herself; born in a very loving family, she is not as many rebellious, but always looks tranquil and quiet, with a little shy. Her experience seems also dull: in the Central Academy of Fine Arts, she majored in sculpture and after graduation; she focused on creating works and then became a professional artist, basically an exhibition every year. She had romance, married and had children, without too much ups and downs. It seems that she keeps a good balance between life and work. In this balance, she puts more energy into art creation and pays more attention to her inner feelings, especially independence.
This independence in the works doesn’t specifically imply the female, but a non-gender independent individual consciousness and that is, the self-leading role of the artist’s whole spirit level is at play, especially in the latest new works of Jin Nv. Throughout Jin Nv’s creation, we can find most of her previous sculptures are mainly based on women, but all new works appear as an androgynous image. On the surface, it is easy to be mistaken for erotic expression or to explore the relationship between the sexes, but in fact, the men and women here are not the lust itself. Rather, men and women or two individuals, mating or transforming each other, Jin Nv is more willing to imagine them as one person, two gestures of rationality and sensibility. No matter how it changes, it is a human being and a completely different state in our lives.
Just like Jin Nv’s creation in different periods, it has been changing quietly. There are no sign symbols or clues latent in the continuous exploration, thus gradually forming her unique personal temperament. People who know her can recognize her works at a glance. The first solo exhibition Fairy Tales and The Centaurs, emphasized seeking for a pure fantasy, so the works are dreamy and spiritual; then in Warmth and Heat, there is gentlity, quietness and implicility as well as a suspended sense of the unknown.She ever said, "No more is empty. Just to wait for it "; In the new stage of creation, she put every piece of work as her doppelganger in which images and emotions can be different and can grow into various selfs and take place of her to live different lives. It seems to be role play so that there are countless similar faces. They live different lives on different life trajectories. Life in parallel time and space is different, but their thinking is highly consistent.
Jin Nv has preset the concept of “doppelganger”and Eros performance of men and women coenosarc to make self reflection in different levels, independent and mirror images of each other, and as an indivisible whole, you in me, I in you. From the perspective of image, there are different parts of the body between male and female. The two bodies from these parts can not be separated from each other, but also include hidden parts from each other. At the same time, different postures express different emotions: not onlylove, dependence, protection and also contradictions, strugglesand confrontation, but a close fit, a sad feeling of fruitless love and intimate alienation etc.. Then, if the coexistence of the two subjects of men and women was regarded the growth of everything, there are also many entanglements, struggles and contradictions andthey finally form a unique order after several rounds of running in and washing.
Jin Nv had mentioned the two legends thought in the creation: one is that a new born wasoriginallya hermaphrodite, later seperated, so he is looking for his other half in the whole life; the other legend is that the single legged birdalways flies until it findsanother one to stop and habitat together. So what the men and women coenosarc in herworks mainly express is based on such legends. In one of the new works, the image of a man and a woman is the same person andthe two people coexist in a body. It looks ambiguous and lingering. But it also maybe entanglement or suppression. It 's a person 's desire to push the detached spirit into his body. So the deeper things in love need to be understood through the cloak of lust.
Not only is the relationship between men and women, but also the mood of people is always so complex. When we are in different periods and growing stages, we are changing many views and ourselves. Some of the changes are very subtle and even unaware, but it is these seemingly insignificant things that have gradually changed us. The artist in a relatively dull lifeconcentrates on the creation, but suffers more, for from every thought to every creation, who knowshow many suspicions and negations to affirmation, and the final presentation is just a result while changes keep go on. Therefore, there is a very important theme in Jin Nv’s new works, which is the dual meaning of metamorphosis and feathering, leading to a new life.
For example,we can see cicadas and snakes a lot in her new works. The cicada in the traditional culture, on the one hand was the avatar of“nobleness ", for in the Historical Records·Collected Biographiesof Qu Yuan and Jia Sheng " it said "the cicada sheds from the muddy dirty and flyies over dusts; on the other hand, due to its biological characteristics, eclosion process is a completely different transformation over and over again, the ancients believed that it is a cycled and eternalcreature. In the Shang Dynasty bronze, there had been cicada images.In the funeralsfrom the Zhou Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, there was the custom to keep cicadas in the death’s mouth, a symbol of resurrection and eternal life. For Jin Nv, cicadas are a miraculous and pure creature, which means a new life. And the snakes’ each shedding, as it is known to all is a rebirth, which reflected in the work is the mutual reborn from the man to the women. In this way, Jin Nv gives us a hint that every person has a huge energy in their hearts. Once they burst, they will be as strong as the transformation between two sexes. The use of cicada and snake, in addition to its borrowing of ancient style, has expressedthe influence of external formsattached to the people, but they are also shell layers that will slough off finally.
For a very pure sculptor, the continuous experiment and selection of materials is particularly critical. Jin Nv once hit off more than a dozen works a year, just to find the most appropriate material. In the early works,she usedthe resin whose color is similar to skin, to close to the skin temperature; then she used more convenient plastic paper clay and rough cast iron, echoing the self-protection and attitudes to the unknown changes; new worksare mainly made of bronze and cast iron, one of which is resin and lead sheath.If we say thatJin Nv once created by more intuition and senses, thenshe now has a clearer and more firm things, although there are all sorts of conflicts in the content.
When we speak of an artist and the temperament of his or her works, it is difficult to describe it in a precise language, but we can feel it. In the aesthetic and technical aspects, she admits to be always more traditional and there is no ground for blame. Many people are touched by her works of beauty, which is the beauty of the whole image, and even you don 't need to understand what she really want to express, let go of what pain her heart has experienced before the success of such a kind of beauty, but they are beautiful, so we can say that each piece of Jin Nv’s works is beautiful and that is the beauty one can fall in love with. It can be regarded as a preference of an artist in the aesthetic,much more talent. The diversification of artistic language or artistic means is not the use of media technology. The real experimental spirit lies in the fact that whether there are more innovations. Jin Nv has even been using a relatively clumsy manual sculpture to create the beauty of her eyes and what she thought, which is the value of the work.
What is especially mentionedis the tattoo pattern and armor shape in her new works. Such form is the first attempt in the sculpture works for Jin Nv, and there are a lot of new overlapping images such as mating, metamorphosis and eclosion, which is the need for artist tocontinue to strengthen her complicated inner feelings. First, the biological nature of the armor and tattoos itself has inspired her to simulate the characteristics ofinsects and animals’ bodies, includingthat carapace, patterns and protection colors were strongly felt by Jin Nv after she kept a unicorn Cassiopeia:what the tough armor protects is the tender body The carapace and pattern and protection of color, is to nd gold strong feelings in a unicorn Cassiopeia, protected in tough armor under the tender body. The same is true for cicadas. When they just come out of the pupa, they can be cracked and blown up, just like a fresh woman, or a thought that just popped up and need to be taken care of. The appearance of armor in these works not only provides some sense of ritual for realistic sculpture, but also means that two bodies, no matter how beautiful the body is, if there is no soul to enrich, it is just a body and a skin bag. The effect of the pattern has a certain inheritance relationship with the ancient armor, which is used to indicate the features of the armor. At the same time, there are totem patterns related to the theme in each piece, such as cicadas and snakes in different works, and totem is another hint to the theme.
To the treatment of details, Jin Nv always pursues the perfection itself. In addition that the human body modeling, sculpture size and material selection are carefully around different designs, pattern treatment is hand drawn and the stripes in the body were produced with method of copper etching: first she draws the patterns by hand in the copper sheet, then corrodes and carves them, and finally colors by chemical water or electroplating process. Although in the process of corrosion, there will appear different losses, But this lack and imperfection is just the strong sense of painting and the manual meaning that she always pursues.
In the production process, Jin Nvis still thinking about the relationship between insects’pupation and armor, armor and snakes’slough, and even how to work more closely with the theme to achieve them. Tattoo pattern has the main figure and corresponding extension;for example, there are cicada patternsin some works and also some common patterns; for example, the patterns of two snakes’mating are rich in vision and more is to strengthen the relevant image meaning. What part should the pattern appear in and the corresponding area? All of them are carefully considered and designed. The production and treatment of armour in the shoulders and joints follows the same rule. It is because of these seemingly casual dedication that endows Jin Nv’s works special charm and beating heart.
We have been trying to understand the relationship between the world and our perception, and we always confirm whether the world is the projection of our inner world; each has its own dilemmas and each has its own judgements and standards. Taking doppelganger as the breakthrough point, Jin Nv’s new works provide us with a greater space for imagination from self breeding to self growth. In Gu Cheng’s poem "I am a Capricious Child ": "I only have me / my fingers and pains / only tearing those /beloved paper/ let them go looking for a butterfly / let them vanish from today, ". They are verses Jin Nv likes. Creating beauty and let it fly can make it worth going through many many hardships.
The beautiful is beautiful.
