Where  the  time  goes
I  was  born  in  Wanzhou,  Chongqing.  I  only  loved  painting  when  I  was  a  little  boy,  and  no  other  hobbies.  As  I  can  remember,  I  was  always  painting,  and  often  got  beaten  for  it.  Because  just  as  the  floor  was  swabbed  by  my  mother,  I  painted  on  it  again  with  my  chalk.  Perhaps,  my  mother  meant  well  for  me.

In  my  junior  high,  I  went  to  the  Children 's  Palace  to  learn  sketching  and  coloring,  like  most  of  the  art  students.  In  the  end,  I  didn 't  enter  the  affiliated  high  school  of  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  that  moment  I  felt  the  sky  was  falling  down,  even  though  it  was  a  small  one.

After  graduating  from  high  school,  I  passed  into  the  oil  painting  department  of  Sichuan  Fine  Art  Institute.  I  painted  earthy  collegial  style  paintings  for  two  years  once  I  got  into  college,  you  know  it’s  our  tradition.  When  I  was  painting,  neither  sad,  nor  glad,  perhaps  I  was  benumbed.  If  my  work  was  bought  by  some  dealer,  I  felt  so  happy,  as  I  could  finally  treat  myself,  by  getting  more  twice-cooked  pork  in  college  canteen.  In  my  memory,  canteens  in  SFAI  were  the  best.

Later  I  got  tired  of  it,  perhaps  I  had  reached  an  aspiring  age,  so  I  became  really  hard-working.  But  when  I  took  a  look-back,  it  was  a  bit  of  deviate,  turned  out  I  had  painted  a  load  of  “authentic”  combinations  of  Chinese  and  Western  style.  All  these  paintings  were  burnt  by  me,  only  one  survived.  Accidently,  it  was  sent  to  a  big  show  at  that  age  –  National  Fine  Arts  Exhibition  for  Young  Artists.  What’s  more,  it  was  unexpectedly  housed  by  the  sponsor  of  the  exhibition,  I  have  forgotten  which  company  it  was,  anyway,  this  company  gave  me  ten  thousand  Yuan.  That  was  whole  ten  grand  at  that  age,  becoming  a  10,000-yuan  household  once  I  graduated,  in  the  eyes  of  my  fellows,  that’s  certainly  awesome  enough.  I  got  repentant  immediately,  was  my  mind  burnt  out,  why  on  earth  did  I  burn  those  pricy  works?  So  my  college  life  suddenly  ended  up  in  my  remorse.

Then  I  came  to  the  beautiful  spring  city  -  Kunming,  where  I  taught  in  the  school  of  design  in  Yunnan  University  for  a  while,  this  experience  seemed  more  like  a  vacation  to  me.  Later  I  passed  Mr.  Shang  Yang 's  Graduate  Record  Examination,  and  came  to  Beijing.  There  were  two  reasons  I  took  that  exam:  one  was  that  I  really  worshiped  Mr.  Shang  Yang,  another  was  that  it  was  a  chance  to  go  to  Beijing.  For  artists,  it   's  rather  lively  in  Beijing,  then  it  was  just  drifting  along  with  comfort  in  Kunming.  But  now  I  want  to  come  back  to  Kunming.

In  my  graduate  study  in  Beijing,  I  learned  Chinese  and  Western  art  history  thoroughly,  because  time  at  that  stage  seemed  boundless,  so  I  read  all  the  painting  albums  of  the  biggest  foreign  language  bookstore  near  Beijing  Normal  University.  I  belong  to  the  kind  of  people  who  just  read  and  never  buy,  mostly  because  I  couldn 't  afford  it,  that  pretty  female  manager  of  the  bookstore  must  hate  me  so  much.  All  these  led  to  a  direct  effect:  I  suddenly  came  to  realize  that  if  you  want  to  be  an  excellent  artist,  do  not  depend  on  act  on  impulse,  even  your  technique  and  talent  are  no  good  for  you,  because  if  you  make  a  wrong  decision,  the  technique  and  talent  will  put  you  in  a  wrong  orbit  like  a  rocket  launcher,  which  will  push  you  far  away  without  ruth,  as  far  as  you  can  never  come  back.  You  have  to  try  to  find  and  mark  that  small  red  flower  in  the  coordinate  of  art  history,  otherwise  your  game  is  over,  at  least  it’s  no  more  exciting,  and  excitement  is  very  essential.  Maybe  I  should  rejoice  that  my  mind  is  still  quite  young.

Providence
I  started  ink  painting  after  I  graduated  from  oil  painting  department,  but  until  this  day  I  haven’t  figured  out  what  was  the  motive  back  then  after  all  these  years.  Perhaps  it’s  because  I  was  from  oil  painting  department,  but  in  this  department  I  can’t  ignore  my  proper  occupation?

Thus  I  infer  that  I  am  a  man  in  hindsight,  I  must  understand  why  I  did  it  after  ten  years.  But  there  is  a  motivation  can  be  ruled  out,  which  is  the  kind  of  common  imagination,  because  even  the  market  of  contemporary  art  had  not  formed  yet  back  then,  let  alone  New  Ink  Painting.

Some  critics  think  that  I  have  been  thinking  about  contemporary  transformation  of  tradition  since  my  college  time,  and  ink  painting  is  the  most  representative  language  of  traditional  art,  so  probably  I  attempted  to  make  a  breakthrough.

In  fact,  it’s  wrong,  it  was  just  because  ink  was  at  my  hands.  And  I  was  addicted  by  its  natural  fit  and  delicate  beauty  with  infinite  levels.  Such  symptoms  existed  ever  since  I  was  very  small,  almost  back  in  kindergarten.  I  could  look  into  an  unknown  ink  painting  in  an  illustrated  magazine  and  dazing  for  a  whole  morning,  just  to  watch  the  cloud  of  black  ink!  Actually  I  never  tried  ink  painting  before,  and  I  passed  into  the  oil  painting  department  eventually.  Life  is  sometimes  a  riddle  to  me.        
                   
Another  point,  changes  in  the  trace  of  ink  on  fresh  Xuan  Paper  is  fundamentally  impossible  to  preset  and  control,  like  providence.  Everytime  I  paint  ink  on  paper  I  utterly  have  no  idea  what  it  turns  out  to  be  when  dried,  
It’s  also  very  attractive  to  me,  as  it’s  very  close  to  “Impermanence”.  For  me,  perhaps   "uncertainty "  is  the  primary  cause  that  touched  me.  I  always  prefer  the  incomprehensible  alteration  of  one  thing.  The  unreadable  information  becomes  a  special  unpredictable  mode  due  to  our  preferences.  Meanwhile,  the  confirmation  of  nature  brings  about  changes  in  substance,  without  any  intention  or  reason  relating  to  the  content.

Of  course,  you  can  also  put  it  as  a  metaphor,  but  I’m  not  emotional.  We  can  only  rely  on  metaphor  when  it  comes  to  unknowns.  It  can  be  found  in  Dao  De  Jing  of  Laozi,  in  philosophy,  and  even  in  science.  Without  metaphor,  philosophy  cannot  come  into  existence.

But  I  have  never  attempted  to  treat  painting  as  a  philosophical  proposition,  neither  a  draff  of  an  idea.  I  only  listened  to  my  inner  wisdom:  whenever  a  friend  or  a  family  member  has  gone,  this  feeling  of  impermanence  would  be  quite  intense.

The  figures  in  Bacon 's  paintings  seem  to  be  suffering  in  purgatory,  but  Bacon  in  my  painting  seems  to  be  in  constant  changing,  dissipation,  soon  to  become  invisible.  But  I  don’t  want  to  use  this  amorphous  form  of  language  to  destroy  the   "existence "  which  appears  to  be  impregnable,  I  just  want  to  give  a  clue,  cautiously,  as  possible  as  I  can.  Bacon  in  my  painting  situates  between  concretization  and  abstraction,  it  doesn’t  attempt  to  start  from  any  party,  it’s
just  standing  right  there  in  the  beginning,  recounting  bluntly  with  an  invisible  state,  so  it  has  enough  tolerance  to  deal  with  all  kinds  of  stupid  certainties.

Work
My  working  style  is  a  little  complicated,  but  not  special,  just  like  all  the  painters  do  in  any  periods,  but  this  is  just  bound  to  the  vision  of  another  profession.  But  probably  Tang  Bohu  couldn’t  do  my  job,  because  he  has  no  computer.

It’s  like  this:  first  I  found  a  photo,  then  I  transplanted  the  figures  in  the  photo  onto  Xuan  Paper,  and  then  I  used  ink  to  copy  this  photo......  As  a  result,  a  kind  of  natural  effect  happened,  which  I  took  it  as  God’s  will,  seriously,  water  and  ink  infiltrated  and  varying  on  fresh  Xuan  Paper  without  control,  this  would  destroy  the  primary  rigorous  image  or  became  amorphous......  Then  I  got  a  piece  of  pure  natural  ink  painting,  then  I  overlapped  the  photo  and  this  ink  painting  with  computer,  and  copied  to  the  canvas  nextly.  After  that,  I  painted  the  picture  with  all  my  effort,  I  painted  from  the  four  corners  towards  the  center,  from  the  back  to  the  front……I  finished  it  with  decoration  on  the  edge.  At  last，I  painted  directly  with  ink  on  Xuan  Paper,  great,  finally  I  could  ignore  my  proper  business.

This  relatively  restricted  method  makes  it  possible  for  me  to  get  rid  of  the  limit  such  as  ego  and  emotion,  just  like  Pop  Art.  After  all,  too  much  ego  and  emotion  is  meaningless,  in  the  meantime  too  much  artificial  trail  makes  my  skin  feel  uncomfortable.  But  Pop  Art  originated  from  Marcel  Duchamp’s  anti-drawings,  their  purpose  is  very  explicit,  but  anti-drawings  will  diminish  gradually,  then  becoming  stronger,  and  becoming  weaker  again  someday.  Sometimes  an  illusion  jumps  out  from  my  mind  beyond  my  control:  Duchamp  and  Warhol  standing  shoulder  to  shoulder  intimately,
just  like  two  spiritual  leaders  of  some  mysterious  organization,  watching  their  fellows  have  fun  off  the  stage,  quietly.  Seems  that  I  should  really  watch  less  news  on  TV......  I  haven’t  watched  a  TV  series  for  ten  years.

Replication
In  my  opinion,  it’s  best  to  let  all  things  arise  naturally,  rather  than  to  create  them.  Although  impermanence  we  are  soaked  in  impermanence  like  water,  but  I  am  not  a  nihilist,  however，they  are.  You  may  call  me  a  chaotic  idealist,  if  you  like.

You  know,  Chinese  never  have  a  God,  but  theirs  “died”，said  Nietzsche,  then  the  scientists，I  think  it  hurt  them  badly.  So  what’s  behind  Andy  Warhol’s  replication  concept  completely  slides  into  nothingness,  although  on  the  surface  and  technically,  replication  is  to  subvert  modernistic  formalism  of  Theology  strengthened  by  abstract  expressionism.  

When  Warhol  said:  There’s  nothing  behind  it.  He  really  thought  there  was  nothing,    that  was  no  joke!  But  I  cannot  agree,  although  I  am  a  fan  of  him,  as  there’s  a  simple  fact:  people,  here  refers  to  the  living  ones,  are  impossible  to  know  what  they  don 't  know.    Therefore,  uncertainty  is  more  definite  than  certainty.  For  instance,  I  duplicated  Warhol  for  72  times,  but  each  Warhol  differs,  this  is  a  little  similar  to  the  reincarnation.  Maybe  there  really  is  such  a  thing  like  reincarnation,  who  knows.  Anyway  Discovery  channel  knows,  I  saw  it  two  days  ago  .

I  haven 't  finished  72  copies  of  them  yet,  but  just  as  its  name  reveals,  Warhol,  bears  a  great  magic  power  like  the  Monkey  King,  can  be  72  changes. "Changes "  and   "times "  happen  to  be  homophonic,  funny,  Chinese  would  love  it.  At  the  same  time,   "times "  means  replication,  and   "changes "  represents  uncertainty,  they  are  homophonic  with  opposite  meanings,  a  symbiosis  of  contradictions.

Similarly,  18  changes  of  Zhang  Ziyi  is  a  tribute  to  Andy  Warhol 's  Monroe  series,  they  are  both  international  major  superstars,  and  belong  to  the  type  of  women  with  unexpected  changes......  All  girls  are.  But  I  stole  color  and  composition  from  Warhol,  of  course,  you  can  say  I’m  imitating,  but  I  won 't  admit  it  as  embezzlement,  because  it  sounds  not  so  good.

I  think  the  imitative  behavior  would  highlight  the  substantive  differences  of  these  two  kinds  of  replications,  on  the  contrary.  There  is  a  psychological  issue.  At  first,  it  may  be  very  hard  not  to  think  18  changes  and  Monroe  are  alike,  because  I  was  exactly  imitating  Warhol.  But  when  you  watch  carefully,  fix  your  eyes  upon  them,  you  will  find  it  hard  to  believe  they  are  close,  because  actually  they  are  just  the  opposite:  to  reproduce  an  anti  copy.  That’s  when  things  start  to  get  weird.

But  I’m  not  planning  to  imitate  Warhol’s  Chairman  Mao  series,  Flower  series  is  not  bad,  very  beautiful,  at  least  not  in  Beijing.  Because  I  haven’t  got  Ai  Weiwei 's  courage,  I’m  sure  that  Warhol  haven’t  either,  that’s  why  he  created  Chairman  Mao  in  New  York,  but  I  don 't  have  a  ticket  to  New  York.  But  next  year  my  wife  will  go  to  give  lectures  about  History  of  Chinese  Art  in  New  York  next  year,  she  might  give  me  a  ride.

Metamorphosis
Even  in  New  York  I  will  not  paint  “Chairman  Mao”,  because  painting  a  beauty  is  good  enough,  why  bother  to  paint  an  old  guy.  Yes,  Bacon  was  an  old  man  too,  I  admit  I  paint  it.  But  that  targets  diffrently.

I  want  to  convey  some  personal  points  of  view  about  deformation  system  of  Western  art:  from  the  Post-Impressionism  which  Cezanne  represented  to  Picasso 's  Cubism,  the  objective  forms  of  figures  in  the  paintings  of  Western  classical  aesthetics  and  transition  period  -  Impressionism,  which  is  between  classical  and  modern  art,  had  been  completely  destroyed,  and  immediately  leading  to  the  emergence  of  more  exceeding  abstract  art.  From  side  view,  the  camera  was  to  blame,  but  the  reality  was  that  a  deformed  history  was  made.  Bacon  was  later  influenced  by  Picasso,  meanwhile,  he  injected  the  cruelty  of  World  War  II  into  Cubism,  creating  a  cruel  reality  version  of  Cubism  eventually.  Whether  the  formal  deformation  of  Picasso，or  surgical  deformation  of  Bacon,  is  a  man-made,  subjective  deformation.  However,  the  deformation  of  ink  painting,  is  just  the  opposite  in  nature:  non-human,  non  subjective,  switching  to  a  Chinese  style  expression,  is  an  act  of  god.  For  me,  this  deformation  is  much  more  real,  natural,  and  mysterious.

But  I  didn’t  mean  to  do  this.  I  just  want  to  feel  everything  with  my  heart  as  possible  as  I  can,  and  express  it  sincerely.  Although  sometimes  sincerity  is  very  difficult,  not  because  lack  of  diligence,  I  just  don’t  know  where  it  begins,  and  where  it  ends  up,  sometimes  I  even  don’t  know  it’s  true  purpose.

I  don’t  know  if  you  have  this  feeling:  although  you  look  into  the  mirror  every  day,  you  feel  the  guy  in  the  mirror  is  changing  every  time,  sometimes  you  can’t  recognize  yourself  in  the  photo  anymore.  Anyway,  I  am  always  surprised  by  the  “copies”  of  myself.  Meanwhile,  I  clearly  understand  that  “me”  in  the  previous  second  and  the  latter  second  are  also  different,  although  I  am  still  the  one  called  Wang  Jiachun.  I  often  get  crazy  for  this,  however,  I  am  always  addicted  to  this  endless  variations  and  impermanence.  This  kind  of  feeling  is  filled  in  Song  Poems,  overwhelmed  by  grief.  It’s  lucky  there  are  times  when  my  mind  was  blank,  similar  to  sleeping  and  vegetative  state,  I  am  chillax，for  my  brain  was  in  total  blank  then.

Dialogue
I  always  believe  that  the  Eastern  and  Western  art  have  completely  different  temperament,  when  you  stop  so-called  objective  thinking,  the  difference  will  be  more  evident，when  you  just  watch  and  read.

Uncertainty  and  amorphous,  in  my  opinion,  are  characters  relating  to  Taoism,  the  core  values  of  ink  painting,  Chinese  art  philosophy  or  aesthetics,  I  agree  with  Li  Zehou’s  point  of  view,  that  Taoism  or  Zhuangzi’s  ideology  is  much  akin  to  aesthetic  view,  which  I  used  to  communicate  with  Western  art.  In  fact,  I  don 't  know  if  it  is  a  dialogue.  Anyway,  judging  from  the  Western  artists  that  I  know  or  at  least  dealt  with  before,  they  basically  have  no  clue  about  ink  painting.  As  Warhol  and  Bacon  are  their  superstars,  and  objectively  speaking  they  represent  two  nodes  in  Western  art  history,  their  works  reflected  their  ages  and  the  common  psychological  structure,  for  sure  they  are  expensive，because  they  are  channels.

My  painting  comes  from  the  chinese  tradition,  also  leveraging  on  Western  concept  and  methodology.  But  what  really  bears  in  my  mind  is  to  get  into  two  systems  at  the  same  time,  and  rearrange  their  respective  components  according  to  my  own  understanding  and  pattern,  in  other  words,  I  want  to  get  the  synthesis  of  two  different  genes,  rather  than  straight  transplant.  It  is  a  job  rather  than  an  ambition.  Job  keeps  me  busy.  Busyness  keeps  me  from  getting  bored，  and  it’s  stimulating.

Religious
Somebody  may  wonder,  why  I  named  that  piece  of  long  scenery  painting  as  Religious.  I  think  it’s  similar  to  western  religion,  it  surely  is  Chinese  traditional  literati’s  religion,  somebody  might  say  Confucianism,  but  I  think  it’s  just  a  brain  washing  tool  that  control  people’s  minds,  but  most  ideas  and  religions  have  this  function,  now  or  in  the  future,  they  belong  to  a  small  group  of  people,    and  I’m  not  a  prophet.  In  the  landscape  paintings  of  Chinese  ancient  masters,  such  as  Dong  Yuan,  Ju  Ran,  Ma  Yuan,  Dong  Qichang,  Ni  Zan,  and  in  the  real  landscape  –  nature,  they  tried  to  experience  the  existence  of  Daoism  and  Qi,  to  feel  the  eternity  followed  by  rejoice  and  satisfaction  from  the  harmony  of  man  and  nature,  this  is  very  close  to  religion  experience,  just  close,  but  it’s  just  where  its  charm  is,  isn’t  it?  Only  they  were  more  emotional,  I  am  more  rational.
Apparently,  emotional  is  better,  because  you  can  find  some  kind  of  belongingness,  but  you  must  be  lucky  enough,  that’s  when  you  rationally，firmly，calmly  and  assuredly  believe  that  your  emotionality  is  rational!  Sometimes  I  wonder,  perhaps  the  only  good  about  art  is  that,  it  makes  you  believe  at  one  moment,  yet  close  the  door  for  you  next  second.