荷塘9月 2017

Curator: Wow, it's like the artist attacked the canvas with a buttercream frosting spatula! Editor: That's one way to put it. We're looking at "Lotus Pond, September" by Wang Xin-Fu, painted in 2017. Xin-Fu employs an impasto technique, layering thick gobs of oil paint. I'm interested in the way he uses this seemingly violent application of medium to depict this very specific sense of place. Curator: I get the sense of place. But if you hadn’t said "lotus pond," I would have guessed "forgotten salad at the back of the fridge." There's a frenetic energy to it, all those tangled stems and decomposing blooms… It's a very…intense…take on nature. Editor: Intense is a good word for it. Consider the socio-political climate in which Xin-Fu operates. His generation wrestles with unprecedented urbanisation and ecological change, so this raw, almost decaying beauty… is a powerful commentary on that. I’m interested in what it conveys about the complex, and frankly fraught relationship many urban people have to the natural world. Curator: Absolutely! It feels almost…protest-y? All that thickly layered paint is, I don’t know, is it me, or is it sort of saying, "We can’t pave over *everything* with concrete!" Like it has all of this frantic desperation? I feel like it gives some urgency about that kind of disappearance. Editor: And think about how that very active surface texture creates this haptic invitation – this literal and intellectual relationship we can have to nature that might seem completely estranged or distanced in a high rise in Shanghai. It invites us, through these gobs of texture and medium, to rethink our sense of natural reality and natural place. Curator: It definitely makes you want to touch it…though I suspect the museum would frown. Jokes aside, the colors— the earthy browns and those faded greens—really nail that late-summer, pre-autumnal mood. A sort of letting go. Editor: Letting go – I agree. And that melancholy also plays a significant part in shaping its viewing context – its space within both national and even global perspectives. As art moves, we can begin to understand some of those larger questions. Curator: Precisely! And from those perspectives, there's something terribly comforting in the chaos of Xin-Fu’s lotus pond. It reminds us of the tenacity of life and of life constantly taking over everything. Editor: And as art history evolves and the piece accumulates additional meanings. Its legacy grows too. Thank you!