On the weekend of May 18, I had arranged to visit the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute with companions to see an art exhibition.When we arrived, we learned that the graduate exhibition had just concluded, and we were left empty-handed.However, fate seems to enjoy playing little tricks on us, as if unexpectedly granting us surprises—the teacher’s exhibition was actually on its last day.So we hurriedly made an appointment to seek it out—the narrow ticket entrance seemed to guard this last narrow gate for us, allowing us into this temple of art.
The light inside the gallery was soft, and the first thing that struck my heart was the well-known sculpture group ‘The Rent Collection Courtyard’. As I entered the exhibition hall,time suddenly seemed to freeze,and I involuntarily slowed my steps.In a painful world depicted by 114 life-sized figures and 108 props, a frail little girl caught my gaze like a nail.
Shehad her hair in pigtails,her bare toes pressed against the blue bricks, and the cuffs of her pants, stained with mud, fluttered slightly in the wind. Most striking were her eyes, like a pure lotus blooming from the mud, turning the bitterness of the old society into an eternal gaze.That gaze penetrated the glass and the years, directly reaching into my heart, making my steps heavy, yet my heart trembled endlessly.
Moving further, Mr. Luo Zhongli’s sculpture ‘Father’, created over 40 years after his oil painting of the same name, stood majestically in the hall, measuring 5 meters wide and 7 meters high.
The bronze-colored face was deeply lined, and the ballpoint pen tucked behind his ear had faded to gray,but what tightened my heart was the hand wrapped in gauze, with traces of ‘blood’ seeping through the bandage,the rough wound and the yellowed cloth bandage seemed to have just struggled out from the scorching earth and wheat stubble, with dust and frost clinging to the wound.
Sunlight streamed down through the skylight, illuminating the fine cracks between the sculpture’s fingers, as if one could hear the sound of time peeling away in the fiberglass. The three of us adults stood breathlessly like children, afraid to disturb this guardian who had walked out from the painting.This father, born from the earth, with the blood and sweat in his wrinkles and the bitterness in his scars, reached deep into the heart, forcing one not to take it lightly.
On the left is the oil painting ‘Father’, and on the right is the sculpture ‘Father’
The glass door of the teacher’s exhibition area was filled with colorful light, and upon entering, I was jolted by the colorful blocks covering the walls.
Abstract paintings seemed to open Pandora’s box,and in front of a blue-purple oil painting, the splattered paint poured like a galaxy, with rough brushstrokes hiding a storm.Those bright, jumping colors and flowing lines seemed to have a life of their own, leaping before my eyes, as if without explanation, they struck a resonant chord in my heart.
The geometric abstraction on the adjacent wall was even more wonderful, with red and yellow squares clashing to create a metallic clang, yet at the next corner, it collided with the ink wash’s ethereal blank space—it turns out that art never requires a binary answer.
What moved me the most was a remarkable piece titled ‘Intelligent Passage—In the Age of Algorithms’. From a distance, I saw countless discarded circuit boards and electronic components, like scattered stars, which under the artist’s hand were transformed into a brilliant collage.
Upon closer inspection, the brushstrokes of traditional painting were still clearly discernible, yet cleverly embedded within the framework of modern technology; the figures in the painting were vivid, with a dynamic interplay of reality and illusion. This was by no means a mere pile of cold parts, but a resonant pulse of technology and artistic spirit—the traditional and the future suddenly met at this moment, sparking a powerful force that shook the soul.
In a corner of the exhibition hall, there were also several traditional Chinese paintings,the ink color seeping from the paper was robust, and in the blank spaces, one could almost see clouds swirling in the inkstone.Wandering through this layered interplay of light and color, I suddenly realized: the few strokes I usually dabble with, which I thought were clever, today I see are merely fleeting shadows, barely scratching the surface.
The road of art is so long, and I have not even truly crossed the threshold of starting. I felt as small as a mustard seed, with onlythe long journey ahead, ‘the road is long and has no end.’
Stepping out of the exhibition hall, once again bathed in the early summer sunlight, the light and colors from that small world still surged in my heart, refusing to dissipate for a long time. The world of art, oh, is not a cold hall to be looked up to from afar; it is precisely this flesh-and-blood existence that can strike a subtle pain in your heart and make your soul slightly warm.
Those lines, colors, earth, copper, iron, and even discarded circuit boards… they are endowed with the power to speak by the artist’s soul, whispering, expressing, and striking every soul that encounters them.
A chance visit to the exhibition felt like a baptism of the soul. True art never hovers high above in the halls; it always bows down to the human world, stubbornly striking the heart with earth, colors, and even discarded parts, awakening the tremors and echoes that have long slept within us. It made me see the shallowness of my own skills, yet quietly planted a seed in my heart—this seed is about reverence and the journey.
After returning home, when I spread out the rice paper again, I could hear the breath of ‘The Rent Collection Courtyard’ from the strokes of my wolf hair brush, and see the light trails of ‘Intelligent Passage’ in the layers of pine soot ink. It turns out that the long journey of art is not about racing against others, but about walking alongside one’s own soul.
From now on, even when facing the longest path of exploration, as long as I hold reverence in my heart, step by step, I will eventually meet the self that has been reassembled by art.
END
##Warmth##Life##Insights##Wisdom##Growth##Art##Exhibition
(Text/Images by: Deng Yulin)
Author’s Bio:
Deng Yulin, a member of the Chongqing Financial Writers Association, has diverse interests and enjoys a simple and happy life.
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