China Ceramics Network News On December 28, 2019, on the second floor of Foshan Library, a 10-day exhibition of traditional Chinese painting and ceramic art works "Quiet Viewing·Mind" was displayed here.
Wearing an indigo embroidered denim jacket, black leggings with gold patterns, and white sneakers, Huang Weishan looks very casual, more like a lively and cheerful ordinary girl who comes to visit the exhibition, but In fact, she is a ceramic artist who has won many gold medals for heavyweight ceramic art creation. She is also one of the two artists in the "Quiet Observation·Mind" Chinese painting and ceramic art exhibition.
Huang Weishan, who was born after the 1970s, is full of smiles and has a lively light in her eyes. She still looks innocent and childlike. Some artists who came to the exhibition felt that when they saw Huang Weishan's works for the first time, they could see the author's childlike innocence and happiness in life.
Li Zhi, a thinker of the Ming Dynasty, said in his "The Theory of Childlike Innocence": "A childlike person's heart is absolutely pure and pure, and is the original intention of the first thought. If you lose your childishness, you will lose your true heart; if you lose your true heart, you will lose your true heart." It is upholding this principle. "The original intention of the first thought" makes her artistic creation more pure, without any commercial atmosphere or utilitarianism. She just follows her inner desire and faces the chaos of the world with her true self. This is her artistic attitude , which is also her attitude towards life.
Exhibiting works with Huang Weishan is the painter Zhang Wei, who has been her friend for many years. He commented on her in the preface to the exhibition "Quiet Viewing·Psychology": "(Huang Weishan's) porcelain art style is bland. He is innocent, especially fond of flowers, birds, fish and insects, and has a childlike interest. In recent years, he has specialized in combining blue and white underglaze red porcelain with firewood to create two-step utensils. His uncanny craftsmanship is completely natural, and he has a unique and hazy poetic aspect. It is a rare and wonderful utensil. Product.”
Born in the holy land of ceramics, she picked up a pointer and became a teacher, raised her husband and raised her children, and became a housewife. Now she is devoting herself to ceramic art creation. Huang Weishan has never thought of living a static life, but is constantly pursuing the truth, goodness and beauty of life. Pursue more authentic self-expression and live the way you like. This is just like the firewood-fired blue and white underglaze red she created, in the ultimateLook for uncertainty in the beauty, even if you have to fail many times before you can get a unique piece.
Danfeng welcomes autumn
Blue and white underglaze red
You can enjoy yourself
Underglaze red porcelain bottle
The ceramic artist who "escaped" from the kitchen
There are two cities where Huang Weishan has special emotions. One is Jingdezhen, the ancient porcelain capital, which is her birthplace; the other is Foshan, the pottery capital of the Southern Kingdom, which is "Shiwan tile, the best in the world". This is where she settled down.
Huang Weishan was born in a family with a deep connection with ceramics. Her parents are professors at Jingdezhen Ceramics University (formerly Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute, referred to as "Tao Yuan"). She grew up in the Ceramics Institute and was admitted to the Ceramics Institute to study ceramics. Art design. In her growth experience, what she saw with her eyes, what she heard with her ears, what she felt in her heart, and the conversations and banquets between relatives, friends, teachers, and friends were all inextricably linked to ceramics. Huang Weishan, who grew up in this environment, has the roots of ceramic culture deeply embedded in her bones.
After graduating from university, Huang Weishan came to Foshan and became a teacher at Foshan Nanhai Technician College. When she first arrived, she didn’t have many friends. She only had one friend who worked at the Foshan People’s Art Museum, so she often went to the Foshan People’s Art Museum to paint, or went out to sketch with her friends. When she had time, she traveled across the country and went into the sparsely populated mountains. Feel the artistic conception between mountains and rivers in the natural environment. After experiencing what she saw and felt during sketching, Huang Weishan poured it into her porcelain creations. However, due to work, she did not have much time to devote to ceramic art creation.
In 2010, an elderly person at home fell ill. Huang Weishan quit her job and returned to her family to take care of her family with all her heart.Take care of your family. "She loves life, makes food, and takes care of her children. She takes good care of her two children and manages the household well. When her parents were sick, she would deliver soup every day until they grew old. Let's go." In the eyes of her family, Huang Weishan is a filial person who loves children and is good at running a household.
After returning to her family, Huang Weishan, judging from the life trajectory of ordinary people, will mostly become a sophisticated housewife, wandering between cosmetics, bags, fitness, and beauty every day. However, the original intention of ceramic art made her unwilling to live such a life. After sending away the two elderly people, Huang Weishan devoted herself entirely to ceramic art creation in 2013.
"Every time she goes to Jingdezhen, she stays for ten days and a half. She never leaves the studio from morning to night. She orders takeout for meals and always works until eleven or two in the evening." The family members were emotional. To put it bluntly, she couldn't let go of her obsession.
In fact, many women in life have long lost their passion and given up their dreams after getting married and having children. They either become housewives at home and take care of their husbands and children, or they return to the workplace and are beaten like men. As Wang Xiaobo said in the golden age, "Life is a slow process of being hammered. As people get older day by day, their extravagant hopes disappear day by day, and finally become like a bull that has been hammered." If there are still Dreaming of escaping from the kitchen and heading towards the art hall. Behind this dream, one has to go through all kinds of hardships in the world to break through the barriers of family and system, or one has a very generous family to protect him from wind and rain.
Fortunately, Huang Weishan, who "ran away" from the kitchen, belongs to the latter. As a student of ceramic art design, she was not limited by day and night, kitchen and love. She still had mountains, rivers and seas in her heart, and bravely embarked on her own artistic path. However, as Huang Weishan pursues her dream, her excellent family environment and the support of her whole family provide her with all the confidence to create art.
"My premise is to get the family home in order first and take good care of my two children. One is only three years old and the other is only thirteen. I will be gone for ten days and a half, so my family is very concerned about me. The support is quite great. " Huang Weishan is particularly grateful to her second sister, who teaches at South China University of Technology, who comes back to help her take care of her two children when she has no classes, allowing her to work on her creations with peace of mind.
The unique artistic path of combining blue and white underglaze red with firewood
"This is the first time that I have exhibited my porcelain works in series. In the past, I have only exhibited a small number of works with others, maybe only two, three, or three or four." This time, "Jingguan· "Heart" Ceramic Art Exhibition, Huang Weishan mainly exhibited her works of underglaze red porcelain, blue and white underglaze red porcelain, wood-fired blue and white underglaze red porcelain, wood-fired color-glazed pottery, and porcelain plate paintings, including "Maple Forest" landscape series (blue and white underglaze red porcelain), "Flying" porcelain plate, "Xiaoyaoyou" (wood fired blue and white underglaze red porcelain), "Colorful" (wood fired color glazed pottery), "Play" (Blue and white with underglaze red) and dozens of other previous works. In preparation for this art exhibition, Huang Weishan specially burned a batch of new works in Jingdezhen for the exhibition, but they have not yet been produced, which is a pity.
"The effect of red-tinged blue and white glaze is red with green, which is the best. This is the feeling of autumn. Autumn is very desolate, the maple leaves are red, and the mountains are covered with a little green." When talking about the work "Maple Forest" When working on the Landscape Series "Dyeing", Huang Weishan seems to be talking about her own children. In order to express the colors of autumn, "Maple Forest" uses the traditional blue and white underglaze and red underglaze decoration technique. Although there are only two colors, the fired effect of the work has many colors, including red, pink, green and gray. In order to make the lines look strong and powerful, Huang Weishan first carved the lines on the blank, then filled them with color, and also used some porcelain plate painting effects.
Different from traditional Jingdezhen porcelain landscape paintings, Huang Weishan's porcelain landscape paintings are more modern and more suitable for young people's aesthetics. This starts with her inheritance. Huang Weishan first learned painting when she was a child. She became her first teacher and disciple, Ke Hegen, a master of Chinese ceramic design art. Ke Hegen was teaching at Jingdezhen College at the time. He was the pioneer in the creation of large-scale works with high-temperature colored glazes in Jingdezhen, and he was also an artist with strong modern art concepts.
“Teacher Ke Hegen pioneered the comprehensive decorative design of ceramics in Jingdezhen. Because Jingzhende’s previous ceramic art designs were all traditional landscapes and pastels, he used many techniques for comprehensive decoration, such as prints. , traditional Chinese painting and other techniques, I have been learning painting from him, and I am still very influenced by him, " Huang Weishan said.
What best embodies the uniqueness of Huang Weishan's artistic creation is the wood-fired blue and white underglaze red porcelain series. This is the second process of her gas-fired porcelain for wood-fired, wood-firedAfter that, the texture is better, more transparent, more moist, the luster is softer, and it has a hazy beauty, and the lines and dyeing effect seem to penetrate deep into the bone marrow, achieving an integrated effect with the instrument, without an obvious sense of boundary. For example, in her wood-fired blue and white underglaze red porcelain work "Xiaoyaoyou", a figure like a mermaid swims in the hazy sky, surrounded by dyed blue and white flowers like floating clouds, with a hint of something vague. of red clouds. The effects of these connotations are beyond the power of human pen.
The blue and white underglaze red technique was created more than 600 years ago, in the middle and late Yuan Dynasty. Blue and white uses cobalt as the coloring agent, while underglaze red uses copper as the coloring agent and is fired at high temperatures. However, underglaze red has very strict requirements on the atmosphere in the kiln room: copper appears red in the reducing flame atmosphere, but turns green in the oxidizing flame atmosphere. Therefore, if you want to achieve the effect of red with green, you need to switch between weak oxidation and weak reduction before firing.
In ancient times, firewood was used. Due to technical limitations, it was difficult to control the atmosphere in the kiln room, and the firing was very difficult. A perfect blue and white with red underglaze, although it was made by a man, is like the sky opening. It can be said to be "one in a million" , so it is very precious.
Nowadays, blue and white underglaze red uses gas firing technology, which is relatively easy to control. But Huang Weishan doesn't want to stop there. She wants to turn the original beautiful air-fired blue and white underglaze into red porcelain, superimpose contemporary wood-fired technology, and directly use firewood to bare fire, so that the ash effect of wood-burning will be consistent with the glaze kiln change. The effect will be a completely new creative effect in the process of conversion between certainty and uncertainty. When the green glaze meets wood ash, crystallization and flakes will occur inside. After the underglaze red is melted at high temperature, different colors will be produced during the flow process, such as pink. The blue and white flowers are also changing, giving off a hazy feeling. This series of changes results in very special color textures and patterns, which are original to her and a breakthrough in craftsmanship.
"The biggest attraction of wood burning is the increased uncertainty. Many effects are unexpected, but the success rate is also very low. Nine times out of ten, the entire porcelain will be destroyed. It is possible that one finished product can be produced in one kiln. None." Regarding wood burning, although Huang Weishan knows the general feeling after burning, the local effect is still full of variables, because the temperature and atmosphere of wood burning are uncontrollable and completely depend on God's expression. Moreover, burning firewood is very energy-intensive. It takes three days and three nights to burn firewood, which requires manual labor to put firewood in continuously.
Therefore, this kind of combination of artistic creation and technological innovation, and the attempt to destroy and establish is very bold. Nine times out of ten, it will burn out, and the cost of each one is not cheap. Someone jokingly said that burning firewood means burning money. But it is precisely because of the unexpected surprises brought about by this uncertainty thatLet Huang Weishan be willing to try.
In addition, because of her special feelings for Jingdezhen and Foshan, as well as the influence of the ceramic culture of the two places, Huang Weishan wanted to combine the two cultures of pottery and porcelain from the two places, and tried to use clay from Shiwan, Foshan to make pottery. Materials, glazes and colorants, glass green and Shiwan red, are combined with Jingdezhen's blank carving techniques and high-temperature firing techniques to form a very unique firewood-fired color-glazed pottery with a metallic texture. It is like pottery, but it has reached a porcelain texture, and Shiwan Red can produce the glaze effect of a uniform kiln. It is also quite difficult to fire high-temperature wood-fired color-glazed pottery. If the clay body cannot withstand it, it will burn out.
It is this spirit of constantly trying to break through and innovate. After eight years of exploration, Huang Weishan has embarked on a unique artistic path of her own in the art of ceramic design, and has participated in various art fairs many times. Won the grand prize.
Graceful
Wood-fired blue and white underglaze red
Flowers are not flowers
Wood-fired blue and white underglaze red
One"Snow Lotus on Tianshan Mountain"
Wang Guowei said in "Human Words", "The poet must have the intention of despising external things, so he can be a slave to the wind and moon. He must also have the intention of attaching importance to external things, so he can share the joys and sorrows with flowers and birds." Despise external things. Things are not affected or manipulated by them, and can be used as I please. Paying attention to external objects is because the wind, the moon, the flowers and the birds all have emotions and can communicate with others.
The same is true for Huang Weishan, servile things with the heart, not things with the heart. Huang Weishan feels that she is very lucky. She does not need to consider market factors or other people's factors. How many people will like or dislike it? She does not need to look at other people's faces to do it. She just follows her own preferences. It doesn’t require too much restraint and can be as wild as you like. Huang Weishan enjoys it very much.Such a creative state.
“When I’m very quiet, I sit there and draw a bird, or even just a leaf. When I feel excited, I draw more colorfully, fuller, and more intensely. Everything. They all follow the heart and act as they please." Huang Weishan said that the creative process is more about the reflection of state of mind and emotions. Therefore, by observing her works quietly, you can observe her state of mind.
What Huang Weishan pursues is a feeling between similarity and dissimilarity, which gives people room for imagination. Everyone can describe it in any language, but it seems that it cannot be described extremely accurately. Just like a vase she made that looks like a flower but not like a flower. Some people say it looks like a swan, but her daughter said it looks like an umbrella, "Mom, you put the umbrella down."
When many people first look at Huang Weishan’s works, their first impression may be that they are naive, but Huang Weishan does not care what others think of her works. Her own style is slowly formed in the creative process, and not everyone will like it. If you are destined to like it, you can talk more, but if you are not destined to, it doesn't matter.
If you want to define a style for Huang Weishan's artistic creation, it may be closer to the primitive painting school in France in the 20th century. This school is also called the Naïve School. Influenced by Bergson's "intuitionism", they pursue primitive art. The natural expression form strives to express direct and simple impressions, ignores the tradition of classical art and the training of all modeling techniques, and advocates that artistic creation should return to the style of primitive art. There is no other teacher except nature. Its representative figure, Henri Rousseau, spent his entire life innocently in the art world.
The flowers, birds and figures painted by Huang Weishan all use extremely simple lines to outline exaggerated or deformed shapes. In particular, her characterizations are often drawn with lines, highlighting certain parts of the human body in extremely exaggerated ways, while deforming other parts, forgetting light and shadow, color, and shape, and only pursuing the freedom of lines. For example, most of the female figures she painted have shrunken heads without facial features, with long explosive hair blowing randomly in the wind, while the men are outlined with lines to show the strength of their muscles.
Comfortable
Blue and white underglaze red porcelain plate
Sprouting
Color glazed porcelain plate
Regarding art and the future, Huang Weishan does not have a clear goal to pursue, nor does she regard it as her own career. "I just like it and love it very much, so I will keep doing it. I didn't say what I must do, it just happened naturally."
The most enviable thing about Huang Weishan is the purity and simplicity of her creations, without any purpose or utilitarianism. Others may want to become a master or make a profit when creating, but Huang Weishan is intoxicated in the creation of ceramic art just because she wants to express herself and follow her heart.
Someone who is familiar with her character said that she is like a snow lotus on the Tianshan Mountains, so pure, casual and straightforward, not seeking comfort, but seeking peace of mind. This is also the inspiration that Huang Weishan’s artistic works can bring to everyone.
(Author: Xiao Haibo)
