Scenery--The Photography Exhibition of Liang Weizhou

From 1999, painter Liang Weizhou who loves photography began his photographic series creation of “Scenery”. Compared with the restless emotions of anxiety, impulsion, contradiction and even neurosis expressed in his painting, his photography seems to present another land of peace and tranquility in the depth of Liang Weizhou’s mind.

In the middle of the 1990s, in his studio, the large-scale oil painting series of Facing Shadow, bright and colorful with carefree brushstrokes, deeply impressed me with its strong expression and tension. At that time, as a representative oil painter of expressionism from Shanghai, Liang Weizhou had already participated in two influential exhibitions of Chinese Contemporary Art : “Change” in Goteborg, Sweden in 1993 and “China!” 1996, which included an European tour. He became one of the few Chinese contemporary artists introduced to the West at an early stage in his artistic development.

From the late 90s on, Liang Weizhou’s creation was no longer at the center of his artistic approach. Besides painting, he devoted more time and energy on photography. He calls himself a photography addict, an amateur photography lover, which is very modest, I believe. He not only trained in photography techniques and learnt the vocabulary related to photography by himself, but also created a unique concept and atmosphere thanks to his ingenuity and independent character. With the efficient fusion of technical means and intellectual concepts, Liang Weizhou’s photographic series of “Scenery” finally took shape and emerged in front of us.

“Scenery” is composed of black and white photographs with subjective coloring, mainly divided into two parts: indoor and outdoor. The indoor part is composed of still lives, and the outdoor part is composed of sceneries. The scope of still life is more extensive than usual, including photographic equipment, little details and marks found in a room. The sceneries depict quiet outdoor scenes.

Liang Weizhou’s scenes represent dull daily matters, without shocking plots or stories. “Scenery” could be described as the personal records of ordinary life. Those recollections have a personal, rich and secret edge. However, at this level, we can only grasp part of these recollections’ meaning, as those things cannot retain their special and mysterious aspect in daylight.

As for the indoor part, these light bulbs, neon-lights, electric socket, half open door, ceiling fan, fruit, washstand, toilet, doll etc, those most ordinary things and corners are sublimated. You cannot help but stare at those trivial things, this gives you the impression that your eyes could penetrate their surface and substance. Obviously, the picture’s composition is delicately arranged : No matter if the composition is balanced or breaks the equilibrium, the purpose is to highlight the subject, and enhance its naturalness. The works’ style is tasty with subtle levels. The subjects are bathed in faint light, which gives them consistency as well as a sense of unreality. These photographs could easily remind you of some very alternative still life paintings of Liang Weizhou’s from the late 80s and early 90s, before he shifted to expressionism. Unlike mainstream painters, Weizhou paints fruits, shells, fish and other still life subjects using grayscale, so that, although meticulously detailed, they would look like lifeless stale specimens. These still lives were very unusual at the time, as they looked both real and unreal and would confuse people’s common knowledge.

When I remember those still lives and compare them with Weizhou’s actual indoor photography, the spiritual continuity is obvious.

About his painting and photography, Liang Weizhou has mentioned in his notes, “Painting is part of my photography, and photography is the extension of my painting……”

Today’s “Scenery” could be regarded as the extension of Liang Weizhou’s alternative paintings of still lives in those years, and in a larger scope, from indoors to outdoors.

Outdoor sceneries offer a wide angle view, and the composition gets its stability form close, to distant views. There are meadows, water areas, with fences and bridges nearby, the horizon or sea horizon appearing in the distance; there are also people, ordinary people. For example, ther is a standing young man lost in his thoughts, two women seen from behind, hurriedly pulling a child, a middle-aged man flying a kite, a lonely swimmer with his head out of the water. Everything seems to be enveloped in a light gray tone of emptiness, the light yellow, color variations, marks and shadows seem to point out things that are not present on the picture : it is the memory of a dream, real, but feeling like an illusion. The lonely people entertaining themselves and the backs of people in a hurry are all familiar images, which could naturally cause melancholy, sadness, loneliness, tenderness and nostalgia in the audience’s heart.

Roland Barthes wrote in Camera Lucida that photography was like adventure, and that a fascinating picture would cheer someone up from depression and loneliness, which is just what gives Photography its value. I would like to take this as the starting point to interpret Liang Weizhou’s photographic series of “Scenery”.

"Scenery--The Photography of Liang Weizhou"Exhibition opens on Aug 18 ,2007 –Sep 07, 2007 at No4,Jiu xianqiao road,Chao Yang district, BeiJing.