刘利平 Liu LiPing (Leo) – about water

刘利平 Liu LiPing (Leo) – about water
Category
Country
CN China
Location
Beijing

以水之名 - 文|刘利平  In the name of water by Liu Liping

(original chinese text - 以水之名----刘利平自序)

The different moods of "water" can lead people's vision and thoughts to a distant place or far, or far to the sky. It can also help people disconnect their emotions from the hustle and bustle of the mundane world, and cleanse the soul of vulgar impurities.

When I first wanted to express myself in painting, I chose water. My work is filled with water, and my work is all about water.

I grew up in the South, grew up in my grandmother's house on the water's edge. Opening the door you see the water directly, an eyeful of water,  vast expanse of water. Many stories happen on the water's edge, and many of them are soaked in the sound of water.  Countless streams connect the fields like the countless blood vessels connect my memories. Spring water, summer water, autumn, winter, endless water stories. In spring, the water flows through a large golden fields of rapeseed, in summer flowing through the shining rice fields; in autumn, reflected, it is black and quiet field of water; in winter, the clear snow water flows fastest down from the forest bringing withered tree roots. My childhood life was touched like this by the colour of water through the four seasons. When I pick up the brush, in my memory, in my body, is the sound of rippling water, splashing onto my painting paper. All my memories, emotions and inspiration have grown up accompanied by water. So naturally water became part of my life. Naturally, I also learned to use water to express my emotions.

I always believed that it is a fate for a person on earth to have close contact with something and produce deep love so that he can not let go. For example, in my painting, there is love, pain, pursuit, pleasure, but also a lot of failure.  Painting connects all the emotions of my life, free from anyone's payment, support, thanks or expectation. I am grateful painting came into my life, showing me, and also hiding me. The water is the key to all this.

I remember my childhood, the summer evening, it had just rained, the river water was high, my friends and I were fishing with nets in the stream at the mouth of the pond. After fishing for a couple of hours, we can expect an evening meal. If we are lucky we can fish a few carp or grass carp, also loach the size of your thumb, snails and shrimp.  As dusk falls, when the frogs are running down to the fields to enjoy the rain, we will go to the parents or elders for two or three coins to go to the village shop to buy two new batteries and put them in the torch. Then, wearing plastic shoes, carrying a snake skin bag we go to catch frog in paddy fields. At this time, the frog is also particularly interesting, especially cute, once they see the light they remain motionless on the ground motionless, whatever you do. When the moonlight and the mist rise, with the sound of the frogs and the smell of the rice field we eat a beautiful midnight snack.

But more often, we are sitting under grandmother's trellises, listening to her story of a water demon. Grandmother lying on the couch, waving a palm-leaf fan, a faint moonlight hanging in the sky, beyond the yard is only mist, croaking frogs and fragrant rice crops, fireflies in the fields and grass send out a faint light. Grandmother speaks slowly: a long, long time ago, in the mouth of this river, there lived a red-headed water monster ...

After the jostle and tiredness of the day, a day's worry and fear, sink into the gurgling dense mist of the deep night, drifting far far away ...

Now, when I paint, reliving these feelings makes me so happy.

F0r me, it's just when I am painting that I am complete, peaceful and happy. I like passion and ambition, but also like subtlety and headwinds, these seemingly contradictory things are made complete by water. 

When I pick up the brush, I often feet the water flow in my body: there is a glittering light in front of me, flowing water, I become the fish in the river ...  Paint is water, paper is the river, when the ink is flowing, my thoughts are flowing too, that feels good. The water is mysterious, you do not know where it is going, both day and night it is changing. Water is the beginning of all my imagination. Water is the cleanest, water purifies me, is sympathetic to me. In my work, there is no impurity, no fighting. But I want my work to remain poetic, even though painting is not poetry. Water is thin and weak, but it's penetrating force is very strong, painting should also have such penetrating power while also maintain the delicate strength of water. I think most of my paintings and even philosophy of doing things can find their roots here. In short, I am grateful to the water.

I never think what should be painted and how to paint it. Whenever I am painting a picture, it must have touched me and warmed me. What is painting in the end? I can not tell, only that it is leaping emotions - or subdued, it is when the soul sends out a call, it arrives in a pure newborn state.

Painting is what I like to do, and gradually, it becomes the only thing that I can be do. Every time I look at my previous paintings, I can always see myself standing alone in the wilderness, trying hard to understand beauty and improve my past self ...... Bit by bit, drop by drop, this king of growth that makes me feel very steady, feel my own painting has only just begun ...

 

Biography

1985 出生湖南郴州
2010 毕业于广州美术学院中国画系山水专业 ,获学士学位
2012 考取中央美术学院公费研究生,师从著名画家姚鸣京教授
2015 毕业于中央美术学院,获硕士学位,就职中国文联出版社
2016 考取清华大学美术学院博士,师从著名画家陈辉教授
李可染画院青年画院画家。

1985 born in 郴州 Chenzhou,湖南 Hunan Province
2010 Graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Department of landscape painting, bachelor's degree
2012 admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts as a graduate student under the famous painter Professor 姚鸣京 Yao Mingjing
2015 Graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master's degree and worked for China Federation of Literature Publishing House
2016 admitted to Tsinghua University, Academy of Fine Arts PhD, under the famous painter Professor Chen Hui 陈辉

See also list of exhibitions and publications: 刘利平-参加联展 and commendation 导师评语.

 

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