Artists

I love observing people around me, instinctively feeling things about them and responding to their movements. I feel like I can communicate with them in certain ways, so I consequently depict them in a direct manner, in response to my feelings. This way I am able to not only reflect their persona, but I am also able to project a part of me that is buried deep down in my heart onto the image that I create.

Once, I met a group of students who traveled from remote rural villages to Chongqing, a city that they regarded as large. These rural children were so naive and disorientated, and they obviously exhibited a state of dilemma and confusion. Attracted to the flashy and trendy people in the city, the rustic children, who wore fake-brands or nameless, poor-quality fashion, were looked down upon by the city dwellers. This reminded me of past and present experiences that still affect me. Spending time with the children, both day and night, I came up with the idea of portraying them, thus producing the ‘Brothers Series’

In response to the ‘Brothers Series’, one painting after another inspired me, and the idea emerged to create a depiction of their parents. During this time, a group of workers who were working in the school grounds caught my attention. The ‘Manual Workers Series’ that was later painted, expressed my feelings towards these workers, garbage collectors and hawkers, who also came from rural backgrounds.

I like to simplify problems and remove unnecessary complexities by using simplified forms to express what I want to say, as I think that complexity weakens the intensity of expression. It is for this reason that these redundancies were removed in these paintings, so that the image that remained was in keeping with the original strength of direct statement.

Shen Hua
October 2005