PREFACE
Article: Zhu Zhu
Gradually formed his unique personal language based on the cultivation of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, as well as extensive interests and observation of western arts, Bian Shaozhi created the transparent and superimposed effect with the medium of tempera, aquarelle and oil paint, which allows us to see the possibilities of ancient handwriting, ink-wash, sketching and rubbing techniques being transformed into today's context.
In Visualization (2015) and a series of related works, he links the dynamic viewing of ancient scrolls with "a real social anxiety" reflected from public safety measures. In more recent works, the sociological narrative background is weakened. Through the extension of objects and themes, he tries to trace the more complex inner experience, and “interweave” factors such as violence, blood, cruelty, warmth, temptation, and desire through structured space, like those entwined octopus’s tentacles that appeared on the canvas. But in the process of conveying his thoughts, he maintained a relatively calm perspective. By dividing the pictures with grids, he reminds the audience the existence of a boundary, thus the sense of conflict in reality has been transformed by language. What painting should provide more, perhaps, is the candlelight through the glass in the dark background.
His bright, spontaneous use of color, as well as his preference for mechanical animal figures also reveals the attitude he seeks to maintain: the innocence, the playful nature of art, and the hidden carnival in the painting process. In the title of this exhibition, if the "black eyes" symbolizes the established identity and classical complex, the “tenacious lashes" refers to his personal clues continuously weaving and extending inward yet far-reaching.