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The reality tends to be that we still cannot shake the ponderous body though we can have an insight into its logic and cause and can even find clearly that it is incurably ill. All we can do, as it seems, is to aestheticize what exists with a hope for a better future.
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Inevitably, new contemporary art ideas seek to break from their confines against the background of the present artistic and social crisis. This is the context for an interpretation of ZHENG Mengmei¡¯s oil paintings
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The basic schema of ZHENG¡¯s works is cuts on the surface of canvases, out of which she creates a surprising reality via a superrealist representation, leading the audience to think they are really facing scarred and battered canvases and subconsciously have the impulse to touch them. Some of these grey superrealist paintings present only a single bold slash across the canvas, some seem to be the result of repeated slicing of the canvas in a paralleled fashion and some appear to be stabs straight at the canvas, repeated endlessly, until it is riddled with holes. There are still some works presenting layers of cuts upon cuts like the overlaying petals of a flower of evil. Undoubtedly, there is an excitement of catharsis underlying these damaged imageries, through which some deep pent-up emotions are released. ZHENG Mengmei imitates the gesture of self-criticism, self-dissection and self-reflection. In front of her finished works, the audience can almost imagine the sound of knife cutting open their own bodies. In this way, the artist communicates her confrontation with life to every audience and the object of confrontation is expanded from the interior to the world around us.
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With a soft nature determined by her female instinct, she depicts her gesture through imitated or forged cuts, but not by slicing the canvas open directly with a knife. However, it is exactly this hold-back that distinguishes the artistic significance of ZHENG¡¯s creations from that of Lucio Fontana¡¯s gaping slashes on canvases. What endows her paintings with a special vision is a subconscious expression of an individual¡¯s interior world and the exterior social reality. Life is not as pleasant as initially imagined and the world is rife with variables and crises - things that most people are afraid or unwilling to confront; but it is usually the frustrations and hurts that can be engraved on a person¡¯s mind, provoking deep thought and promoting his growth¡ |
