Organizer

Shenzhen Guanshanyue Art Museum, Xizang Art Museum

Exhibition Time

March 1st to March 30th, 2025

Venue

Shenzhen Guanshanyue Art Museum

Producer

Chen Junyu, Laba Ciren

Curator

Shang Hui

Curatorial Execution

Wang Juan, Peng Baoyu

Administrative Coordination: Wang Jian, Chen Qizhong

Exhibition coordinator: Cheng Ping, Zhou Yi, Cao Yujie

Digital Coordination: Xiao Zhuqing, Li Ziyue, Lin Xizhe

Promotion coordinator: Liu Le, He Xiang, Luo Xi, Qiu Xueyi

Visual planner: Zhu Li

Video Planning: ANIU

Video creative production: JOSH

Collaboration on digital works: Yellow Wasabi

Floral Design: Cai Zixin

Thanks: Jibenggang Art Center, Kawajian Tibetan Carpet Factory

Shang Hui

Director of the Art Theory Committee of the China Artists Association

Director and doctoral supervisor of the China Evaluation Association

Lu Shan is my friend. Although I haven't had much contact with her, her bright black eyes, like Gu 

Cheng's poem describing black eyes, left a deep impression on me.

She told me that she was secretly drawing, looking very unconfident. But she occasionally mustered 

up the courage to post pictures of my work, which surprised me. Because her paintings are completely

 devoid of vulgarity, they are all about facing the loneliness and sadness that she has drawn for herself. 

The painting is not concrete, or in other words, there is no need to depict it, but rather presents the 

lonely pain and enjoyment directly there, without decoration or concealment. Based on the visuals, I 

understood her thoughts, and she completely withdrew from the real world and entered her own 

spiritual realm.

My interpretation of her image was later confirmed in my conversation with her. The passing of her 

loved ones made her, who was already obsessed with pure spirit, even more vulnerable. She can only 

consume sadness and soothe pain when facing the canvas.

Her images are inseparable from black, just like her meditation on another world created by the 

darkness of night; Her images are also filled with pink and deep red, just like all women's sensitivity 

and anxiety towards their menstrual cycle; Her screen is also filled with blue, the pure and clear color 

of Klein blue, as if it can instantly calm and stabilize restless emotions.

Her paintings are always in a state of turbulence, transcending reality through the flickering of light, 

oblique lines of sight, and spiral patterns, just like post Renaissance stylism and Baroque art in Europe. 

Her images are devoid of horizontal lines and vertical lines, and the world is always filled with twists, 

setbacks, and embarrassment in her eyes. Her worldview evolved into the brushstrokes on the screen

 being arbitrary and destructive, and the coverage of brush colors creating an abnormal uncertainty.

 Her paintings evoke the brushwork of Kokoschka (Oskar), and the depiction and coverage create a 

expressive sense of power.

Any abstract painting has graphics, and graphics are often associated with symbols of an object. 

Lu Shan's paintings may appear abstract, but in reality, the symbol system of objects constitutes her 

world of painting. Not to mention her self referential "Blackbird Series", she uses eight styles of

 freehand brushwork to depict the black bird that breaks free from constraints but is often restrained. 

The painting uses the theme of "folding wings" as a metaphor for the spiritual situation of fate in 

reality. As for her paintings of "twisted branches," "beaches," "bonfires," "ponds," and "jungles," 

most of these landscapes or objects come from the visual markers of her experiences. The reason

why she constantly depicts these symbolic landscapes or objects is not because she observes them 

with a leisurely mood, but because she has encountered them in exploring her spiritual existence, 

and they have become witnesses to her spiritual emotions. Therefore, in her paintings, they are not 

depicted as external appearances, on the contrary, she establishes their authenticity through her own

 understanding. They present a tangled, twisted, tangled, and chaotic state in her paintings, which 

were originally branches or canopies, but were depicted as raging flames and colorful flying flowers. 

In fact, she didn't depict anything, but rather let her brushstrokes transcend objects. Her knife like

 lines were like the blood marks of a wound, and every stroke she made came from and hit the pain

 in her heart.

These paintings are all her self sacrifice of aesthetics.

Moving from the Central Plains to Shenzhen, she had the deepest appreciation for the wild growth 

of plants without seasonal order. This is a psychological reflex acquired by geoculture in geobotany.

 In contrast, her body carries the rich poetic essence of Central Plains culture, which is dispersed in

 the growth of those southern plants that do not know life and death. She couldn't see their lives 

and deaths, but constantly felt the withering from within. This becomes the "lush vegetation", "

blooming flowers in April" or "peach blossoms beginning to bloom" in her paintings. And what 

these images see is the remnants of flames or the disillusionment of waves.

Obviously, Lu Shan's painting is not about what she sees, but about what she perceives with her 

body. Touch becomes the existence of the heart. Her office window is the channel for her spiritual

 breathing, which is perceived through her body. Therefore, paintings such as "Plants and Trees 

Bloom", "April Flowers End", and "Peach Blossoms Begin to Bloom" have become spiritual depictions

 of her bodily perception of the world. Maurice Merleau Ponty once said, "The problems of the world 

can start with the problems of the body." Lu Shan's questioning of life and death is achieved through

 the use of the body to awaken the secrets of existence.

As the theme of the art exhibition, 'Touching the Heart' reveals the important significance of bodily

 perception in the existence of experience. It is the touch and awareness of phenomena by the body

 that fills my will in the world of appearances, and Lu Shan's paintings confirm the will in appearances

 through the body, thus emitting silent cries in the brushstrokes and shining without lights in the dark

 tones. She always regards the placement of her spirit as a prerequisite for her existence. She found 

her spiritual home on the snowy plateau, and all that 'heart' originated from her perception of her 

body on the plateau.

Lu Shan's paintings, in my opinion, are more like a legend. Because she is a professional curator at 

an art museum, she unexpectedly achieved a dream of becoming a painter who was not originally 

a painter. Or, in other words, her paintings were not professional works created by professional 

painters or artists for the purpose of painting, but rather served as the 'touch' of the brush used by

 the 'heart'.

Looking back, I now realize why her bright black eyes left the deepest impression on me. The night 

gave me black eyes, but I use them to search for light, "Gu Cheng's poem is the power of her" 

touching the heart "brush.