I like to temper the language of painting through sketching, and then by incorporating my experience with sculpture, the composition exudes a sense of body and material. In bringing together color and shape through this most humble and direct methods, traditional techniques are integrated with a contemporary understanding of painting.

I pass through each season of the mountains, painting the warmth of spring, the summer sun, the chill of autumn, and the retiring winter. Day after day, I labor as my mother and father labored all their lives in the earth of those mountains.

-- GUO Haiqiang

GUO Haiqiang graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, and is currently working primarily with painting. The artist’s practice inhabits the boundary between sculpture and painting, with an aim to bring shape to his spiritual world. In recent years, GUO Haiqiang has mainly been working in the mode of “sketching.” As the artist rides through the Zhongnan Mountains alone, he outlines the shape of the ranges in oil, and uses these sketches as the basis for his work. Although this practice of working “in plein air” is all but rare in art history, and has long since been elevated to a methodological model of artistic creation by Cézanne and others, GUO’s approach is much more than a simple nostalgic repetition of 19th century practices by one inhabiting the 21st. With a shift of cultural context and artistic concept, the artist’s sketches reveal an attempt to infer the truth of things and seek out the underlying laws of everything -- a concept termed “ge wu” in Chinese epistemology. To the extent that it is possible, GUO rejects contemporary techniques, and internalizes what he observes with the naked eye. Then, he translates what he sees of the material world into a simple, yet peaceful inner world through artistic creation.

Unlike Cézanne’s paintings of Montagne Saint-Victoire, GUO’s depictions of the Zhongnan Mountains are largely fragmented views of the landscape, which are titled after the date of their creation. The sense of time, space, and experience evoked by name and work reflect the artist’s emotions and cognition, while also serving as important identifying markers. In terms of technique, GUO’s work adheres to the minimalistic principle of doing “more with less.” He uses limited tools and aids and strives for simplicity, even in composition and use of color. Blocks of color and contrast of light and dark in the pieces create a texture reminiscent of bas relief. This attachment of low relief to the flat medium of painting is one of the ways in which the artist experiments with the possibilities of painting.

我喜欢通过写生来锤炼绘画语言，雕塑经验的带入，让画面里散发出充沛的身体感和物质感。用最朴素直接的方式集中色彩和形状的凝聚，把传统手法和当代绘画意识融合。

我一年四季在山中穿行，画春暖，画夏阳，画秋爽，画冬藏，日复一日，就像我父母一辈子在地里劳作一样。

一 郭海强

郭海强毕业于西安美术学院雕塑系，目前主要从事架上绘画创作。他的艺术实践沿着雕塑语言与绘画语言的边界进行探究，旨在通过绘画的方式为自己的精神世界塑形。近年来，郭海强的主要创作方式乃是“写生”。他骑行至终南山，独自遁入山中，以油画勾勒山景的形态，并据此完成画作。尽管户外写生在艺术史上并不罕见，而且早已被塞尚等人升华为艺术创作的方法论模式；然而，郭海强此举却并非身处21世纪对于19世纪进行怀旧式的简单重复。由于文化语境与艺术观念的骤变，郭海强的写生显露出中国传统认识论中“格物”的意味——他尽可能弃绝当代技术，仅凭借肉眼观察将凝视的对象内化，再通过创作将所见的物质世界转译为简单而宁静的内心世界。

不同于塞尚的圣维克托山，郭海强在终南山大多只描绘碎片化的山景，并以写生当天的日期作为作品名。两者构成的时空感与经验性，既反映出艺术家的内心感受与认知，也是作品的重要识别标志。在技术层面上，郭海强的创作符合“少即是多”的极少主义原则，仅用有限的工具与辅助手段，甚至是构图和颜色也力求简单。在作品中，色块化处理与明暗度对比，产生某种近似浮雕的质感。或许，将浮雕感附着在注重平面性的绘画上，正是郭海强对于绘画中不同可能性的尝试。