不远处灿若莲花

 

文：加藤弘雨

 

 

23年的初夏，结束了世界长久的不通往来，回去后的第一站便是杭州，円室最初结缘的地方是在杭州。正好赶上艺术家何效义在国美象山校区关于铸印的座谈会，那晚有一个对谈活动，付晓东是其中对谈一员。

 

“她是空间站的创始人，画廊在北京798，付晓东是知名的画廊主和策展人，曾经策划很多当代艺术、以及跨界艺术展览”只听到旁边的陈量介绍了付晓东。

 

“円室我有关住到，很不错的展览和空间布展都很好”付晓东说。

 

円室是个刚刚起步的小画廊，我没有回去过，甚至円室在国内是一个什么样的存在更无从得知。让我这个从信州小山谷里出来的人有种欣喜若狂的吃惊。

 

在杭州的日子我们又有过几次交谈，逐渐我才知道她是从专业美院毕业，之后做了几年美术杂志的编辑工作，之后在北京798成立了“空间站艺术空间”，策划多次国际性的大展活动。

 

在聊着她从学院毕业再是如何从北京到杭州的一些事情，回归传统，从跨界艺术再回归到中国山水，水墨，传统的中国山水才是最当代的。这是付晓东对自然界的事物和近年研究的山水水墨，宇宙和道教的一些理解与悟道所得。我在旁边看到她的有力的眼神，仿佛在告诉我这么多年她的旅程。

 

付晓东对于对山水，对绘画，书法有着自己独特的见解。之后每次到杭州总会去看她作画，从她的画室可以看到西湖的美景，那是古代士大夫所渴望的一种状态，她不是简单在画，而是用心用整个身心融入到她自己的山水世界。整个生命气韵都在这里，每次看她的画总会给人以惊喜，那是在短时间内她思维方式和着重点在变，是她修道、笔墨的一种相融合，这种融合给人一种神秘感，超越了时空界限。

 

“你知道萨满吗？”她说。

“不知道，是不是象我老家祈福仪式那种吗？”我回答道。

“有点相似，但又不一样”她说。

她的眼神中最充满了对神灵的一种敬畏。

 

我一直在关注着她，每次回去路过杭州转机的空隙，顺便看一下她的画作，那是她本人心性的体现，山水、水墨、现代的传统的都是她的媒介，来表现她内心世界。她站在画室看着远山和西湖，那就是她日常倾诉对象。我能看出来。

 

“其实这次作品不是第一次到日本，小的时候在少年宫练书法，当是日本有个读卖新闻书法奖，我还得了奖，读卖新闻还报到，都过去很多年了，那份报纸我始终还保留着”付晓东对我说。

 

书法笔墨山水思想，可以说是付晓东血液里所带着的东西，始终有一天她会爆发出来。

 

付晓东是从学院出来之后就做了书画杂志的编辑，回来创立空间站，策划过多次三双年展等大型展览。她可以从当代再回归传统，就像那天晚上大家坐在象山的榕树下聊着看似与艺术有关又无关的话题，那是对自然，对人，对事物本质起源的一种对话。

 

有时候看她在黄山，有时候在云南苍山，看到她发的朋友圈里很多是去写生的照片，她喜欢山水喜欢身至大山之中，从自然界中吸取能量，在植入自己的创作之中。

 

有天看到她拍云南苍山的雪山，我给她留言好美的雪山。

她回复道，“灿若莲花”。

元月二日我去爬伊那的十藏山，我发给她雪山的照片。

她回复道，“原来莲花就在身边，在家门口啊！”

那天一起爬山朋友家的女儿就叫莲花！

 

“灿若莲花”那是云南的雪苍山，也是伊那的阿尔卑斯的雪山。于是我们相约了在阿尔卑斯山谷中的信州高远美术馆，做一个近年她回归传统山水，水墨，道家文化研究、修行和她手中不停的画笔一种呈现。

 

信州高远是古城，是三座阿尔卑斯山脉的中央，也是整个日本正中间的地方，灿若莲花的雪山之中，附近有个O磁场的山头，山水是中国人的中心之源，道家的思想三生万物，高远的地方有O的出现，也是日本正中心，这或许是一种冥冥之中的缘，从象山榕树下来到信州高远结缘化缘。

 

2024.11.1日于信州伊那谷

 

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Radiant as a Lotus

 

By  KOUN KATOU

In the early summer of 2023, after the world’s long period of disconnection, my first destination upon returning was Hangzhou, where my journey with ENSITU first began. Coincidentally, I arrived just in time for a discussion led by artist He Xiaoyi on seal casting at the Xiangshan campus of the China Academy of Art, with Fu Xiaodong among the panelists that evening.

“She’s the founder of Space Station, a gallery located in Beijing’s 798 Art District,” I heard Chen Liang introduce Fu Xiaodong. “She’s a renowned gallery owner and curator, known for organizing numerous contemporary and cross-disciplinary art exhibitions.”

"ENSITU has impressed me with its exhibitions and spatial design," Fu Xiaodong commented.

ENSITU is a small, emerging gallery. I haven’t visited it in person, nor do I fully understand how it is perceived domestically. For someone like me, who hails from a small valley in Shinshu, the entire experience was both surprising and exhilarating.

During my stay in Hangzhou, we had several conversations. Gradually, I learned that Fu graduated from a fine arts academy and spent several years as an editor for an art magazine before founding Space Station in Beijing’s 798 district, where she organized numerous international exhibitions.

As we talked about her journey from art school to Beijing and then to Hangzhou, she shared her thoughts on returning to tradition—moving from cross-disciplinary art back to Chinese landscapes, ink paintings, and traditional Chinese mountain-water themes as the true essence of contemporary expression. This reflects her insights into nature, her studies of landscape painting, the cosmos, and Taoist philosophy. I could see the intensity in her gaze as if her journey over the years was being revealed to me.

Fu Xiaodong has a unique perspective on landscapes, painting, and calligraphy. Whenever I visit Hangzhou, I make sure to see her work. From her studio, one can see the beauty of West Lake, an ideal longed for by scholars of ancient China. She isn’t merely painting; she immerses her entire being into her mountain-water world. The energy of life is palpable in her work, which always leaves one astonished. Her evolving thoughts, her art, and her devotion merge into a mysterious, timeless experience.

“Do you know about Shamanism?” she once asked me. “I’m not sure, is it something like the blessing rituals we have back home?” I replied. “It’s somewhat similar, but also different,” she said, her eyes filled with a reverence for the divine.

I have always followed her work. Every time I pass through Hangzhou, even briefly, I stop by to see her paintings. Her art reflects her inner world through landscapes, ink, and both modern and traditional media. She gazes at the distant mountains and West Lake from her studio, connecting with them in a personal, almost spiritual conversation.

“This isn’t my first time showcasing work in Japan,” Fu once mentioned. “As a child, I practiced calligraphy at the Youth Palace, and once won a prize from the Yomiuri Shimbun. They even reported it, and I still have that newspaper after all these years.”

Calligraphy, ink, and landscapes are deeply embedded in her, destined to emerge fully one day.

After graduating from art school, Fu worked as an editor for an art and calligraphy magazine, eventually founding Space Station. She has curated numerous significant exhibitions, including the Triannual. She traverses the realms of contemporary and traditional art, just as we sat under the banyan tree at Xiangshan that night, conversing about topics that seemed both related and unrelated to art—conversations about nature, humanity, and the origins of existence.

Sometimes, I see her in the Huangshan Mountains or among the peaks of Cangshan in Yunnan. Her social media posts are often filled with photos of her plein air sessions. She loves nature, immersing herself in the mountains and drawing energy from them, integrating it into her creative process.

One day, after she shared a photo of the snow-covered peaks of Cangshan in Yunnan, I commented, “What a beautiful snowy mountain.” She replied, “Radiant as a lotus.” On January 2nd, I climbed Mount Jūzō in Ina and sent her a photo of the snowy mountains. She responded, “So, the lotus is right here, at our doorstep!” Coincidentally, my friend’s daughter, who joined us for the climb, was named “Lotus.”

The phrase “radiant as a lotus” could describe both the snowy peaks of Yunnan’s Cangshan and the Alps in Ina. We arranged to meet at the Takato Art Museum in Shinshu, nestled in the alpine valley, where she would present her recent explorations of traditional landscapes, ink, Taoist culture, and the incessant movement of her brush.

Shinshu Takato is an ancient city, located at the heart of Japan’s central Alps and surrounded by mountains that bloom like a lotus. Nearby lies a mountain with an “O” magnetic field—a source of mountain and water at the core of Chinese civilization. Taoist philosophy speaks of “the birth of the ten thousand things from the three,” and in Takato, Japan’s geographic center, one can sense this inexplicable connection, a journey that began under the banyan tree at Xiangshan and brought us to this moment of serendipitous convergence.

 

November 1, 2024, in Shinshu Ina Valley.

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付晓东，从鲁迅美术学院国画专业毕业后，从理论和实践多个维度积累了丰富的艺术经验，开始构建属于她个人的神话宇宙。虽然她的创作受到国际当代艺术的影响，但真正使其艺术世界达至完善的，是她对中国传统文化、水墨艺术、道家思想、占星术和萨满文化的深入探索，并将这些精髓巧妙地融入她的画作中。她的作品构建了充满神圣气息的空间，这些空间成为精神力量和神秘生物的栖息之地，构成了她作品的内核。

 

付晓东的作品展现了她对“神圣”这一概念的深刻兴趣。这种神圣并不限于某一宗教或文化，而是潜藏在我们内心深处的一种多层次的美学体验。中国文化自古便有超现实主义的影子，从诗歌到绘画，尽皆蕴含超越现实的精神色彩。付晓东巧妙地运用了这种超现实的张力，使她的画作充满神秘而深邃的转化空间，既展示了她对未知世界的热情，也使观者产生一种平行现实的错觉。在她的画作中，她似乎扮演着一位摆渡人，引导我们通向那些奇迹般的转化空间。

 

在她的水墨世界里，付晓东创造出一个充满活力而不受约束的万神殿，充满了她对自然和宇宙宽阔天地的迷恋，不论这些景象和空间是现实的还是超自然的。她的色彩带有一种轻松的幽默感，画面时常带有繁复的结构，既自然又雕琢，仿佛是一种对生命本质好奇和深层提问——“遂古之初，谁传道之？”在她的作品中，自在与严谨并存，人类空间的局限性被轻轻揭示，同时她也邀请观者进入一个神圣的领域，去探讨生命、情感和形式的流动性。

 

在付晓东的创作中，在地环境和宇宙界限模糊不清，她运用了写实、超越现实并置的手法，为作品注入了独特的张力。在她的画作中，那些半植物半生物的奇异生命、星球与日月同辉的景象充满了乌托邦式的希望，同时也让人感受到它处于人类堕落的威胁。她的作品营造出一个既不完全属于地球，也不完全属于异星的空间。在这些幻境中，付晓东试图探讨形态转化与神秘世界的联系，为观者带来独特的视觉和心理体验。

 

付晓东的作品，不仅延续了中国传统水墨艺术的意韵，更是对人类心灵、自然和宇宙的一次融合与探索。通过超现实主义、浪漫主义和文人画的表达形式，她的作品展示了一个丰富而复杂、充满变幻的幻想世界，突破了性格与情节的固有边界，赋予观者无限的想象空间。

 

文：卢玫

 

 

Fu Xiaodong began constructing her own mythological universe after graduating from the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art, where she majored in Chinese painting. Her artistic foundation is built on both rigorous theoretical study and hands-on practice. While her work is influenced by international contemporary art, its true depth comes from her profound engagement with traditional Chinese culture, ink art, Taoism, astrology, and shamanic traditions. Fu skillfully weaves these influences together to create spaces that resonate with sanctity, spaces that serve as sanctuaries for spiritual forces and mysterious beings, which are central to her artistic vision.

 

Fu’s exploration of the concept of “sanctity” transcends any single religion or cultural framework. Rather, it taps into a universal, multi-dimensional aesthetic experience that speaks to something fundamental within us. Chinese culture has carried traces of surrealism since ancient times: from poetry to painting, surrealism was embodied as a spirit guiding the creation. Fu deftly manipulates this surrealist tension to transform her painted spaces into liminal realms of profound mystery. Through these spaces, she not only expresses her fascination with the unknown but also invites viewers to step into an alternate reality. In this sense, Fu assumes the role of a “ferryman,” leading us toward miraculously transformative realms.

 

In her world of ink, Fu constructs a vibrant and unrestrained pantheon that mirrors her fascination with nature and the cosmos, regardless of the realism of these scenes and spaces. Her colors carry a lighthearted sense of humor, and her compositions often feature intricate structures that feel both natural and meticulously crafted. It is as though each piece is driven by an insatiable curiosity about life’s essence and a timeless question: “In the beginning, who imparted the Way?” Her work is marked by a delicate balance of freedom and precision, subtly unveiling the limitations of the human world and, at the same time, inviting viewers into a sacred realm to explore the fluidity of life, emotion, and form.

 

Fu’s creations dissolve the boundaries between earthly and cosmic realms. She merges realism with surrealistic juxtaposition to instill in her works a distinct tension. Strange, hybrid beings—half-plant, half-organic—inhabit scenes where planets glow alongside the sun and moon, evoking both utopian hope and a latent warning of humanity’s potential decline. These dreamlike worlds occupy a space that is neither fully terrestrial nor entirely extraterrestrial. Here, Fu explores the connection between the transformation of forms and mystical realms, offering viewers an experience that is uniquely both visual and psychological.

 

Through her fusion of surrealist, romanticist, and literati influences, Fu Xiaodong’s work extends the expressive essence of traditional Chinese ink art into new, complex dimensions. Her art reveals an intricate, ever-evolving fantasy world that defies conventional narrative and character boundaries, enriching viewers with an expansive space for limitless imagination.

 

BY Lu Mei