In-between Perpetuity 无始无终 Junyi Lu 卢君意

Junyi Lu is an artist born in 1996 in Guangzhou, China. She received a BFA degree with honors at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2018. Her practice specializes in paintings with varied mediums in order to create absurd scenes evoking subtle responses, which conveys a philosophical view on one’s existence in the universe, in relation to both the society and nature.

卢君意是一名艺术家，1996年出生于广州，2018年毕业于美国马里兰艺术学院，获荣誉艺术学士学位。她的艺术实践是以勾绘荒谬的场景的多媒介绘画，其创作传达了她对人与社会、自然关系的哲学思考。

“ I suddenly realized that it is at the same place one is born and dies. A person is a mass of gas coming out of the ground. Where a person comes out to life will be one’s grave after death. ——Jia Pingwa

“我突然有了一个觉悟，常言生有时死有地，其实生死是一个地方。人应该是从地里冒出来的一股气，从什么地方冒出来活人，死后再从什么地方遁而成坟。” ——贾平凹

Junyi Lu’s first solo exhibition presented at Untitled Space in Shanghai continues her study of a macroscopic metaphysical dimension of reality. Like the Chinese idiom of “having a beginning and an end”, it is often expected for things to have a start point and an endpoint. Yet, while we all live in the moment, both the beginning that lies in the past and the end that lies in the future are merely inaccessible artificial ideas with no way to trace back or forward. Contrary to Confucianism that is widely accepted in Chinese society indicating one’s lifetime as the process of a linear upgrade, the artist sees the world as a unity, within which all creatures fall into their reincarnation cycles. For us, the cells within the unity, at any endpoint we set for ourselves will become another start point once we reach it. We are forever the perpetuities in between a non-existent beginning and end. 

卢君意在上海无题空间的首个个展延续了她在宏观上对形而上学的现实的寻找。中国有句成语“有始有终”，人们普遍认定事物的发展必有起点和终点。然而当我们都活在这个单一感知的当下，那个消逝在过去的起点和远在未来的终点，都只是人工的虚无概念，触不可及。儒家思想主张人的一生是线性增长的过程，希望持续演化成为更好的自己。与此不同，卢君意把世界看作一个整体，里面共生的所有生灵在不断完成着他们的轮回。活着的人、死去的人、男人、女人、动物、灵魂，甚至是无形的空气，都只是存在于同一个世界的不同形式。其载体在不断变化，于是有了“前世今生”。说是轮回，其实不过是天地之间的呼吸罢了。

Instead of a representation of the corporeality, Lu seeks to provide another view closer to core beings under the surface, which focuses on humans’ in-laid energies. When people are regarded as temporary stages of the continuously transforming process in their reincarnation cycles, elements such as gender, race, and social status become less significant. Therefore, figures in her paintings often have ambiguous gender and minimal body features. In addition, coming from an illustration background which demands a more effective visual communication, Lu set these figures in fictional scenes where components are attached with symbolic meanings to create narratives. The contrast between the bulky figure and the carefully-designed environment is meant to deliver a subtle atmosphere with a sense of humor, for it is to the artist’s realization that sometimes the serious moments in life simultaneously have an ironically comical quality. 

区别于描述眼睛所见的物理现实，卢君意致力展现另一个在表面之下的真实，其关乎着人类的内部能量。当人被视为轮回过程中的某一阶段，像性别、种族、社会阶层等外在概念便变得不再重要，于是画作中的人物通常被赋予模糊的性别和笼统的身体特征。卢君意在大学的插画背景训练了一套有效的视觉表达能力，因此在她带故事性的画面中，人物被放置于虚构的场景里，所有的组成元素都携带象征意义。粗糙的人物和精心设计的环境之间产生的对比，呈现给观众微妙气氛下的晦涩幽默。卢君意认为在生活中那些严肃的时刻中，常常伴讽刺，和令人发笑的角度。

For elusive emotional responses, the delicacy of paints becomes essential. In this body of works, Lu manipulates various materials and mediums to create multiple layers within objects and nuance in space. In her methodical working process, all decisions include the choice of medium, the texture and thinness of layers of paint and color relation are results of meticulous sketches and careful consideration. The juxtaposition of the absurd imagery and its fragility is designed to leave dumbfounded humor to the audience.

为了引起观众更细腻的情感回应，准确的颜料运用变为绘画的核心。在这个系列作品中，卢君意使用不同的媒介来创造不同层次和空间感上的细微差别。在她系统性的创作框架下，艺术家对媒介的选择、不同颜料层次，以及其肌理和厚度的掌控，都是在大量画稿和缜密的思考之后的抉择。画面的荒谬性和绘画过程所创造的敏感性并行，是留给观众的黑色幽默。