对·视 | 李友昌作品展

·Hou Baochuan, Member of China Artists Association, Vice Chairman of Chongqing Artists Association, Vice President of Chongqing Oil Painting Society

A few days ago, I received a bunch of recent works from oil painter Li Youchang in my mailbox. Faced with these exquisite oil paintings, I was constantly attracted by the rich colors and innovative composition of the images. After catching sight of them, I felt the urge to write something. To be honest, I have known Youchang for nearly 30 years, but I have never thought about writing something for him because writing articles is indeed a great challenge for me. What should I write? After much deliberation, I decided to write about ordinary Youchang with an ordinary mind, so that it doesn't feel like I'm playing with words.

In my opinion, Youchang is a painter with thoughts and sentiments. Whether studying in China or studying abroad, he could calmly approach his artistic creation, not following trends or seeking immediate fame. He always maintains a peaceful attitude to observe the familiar people and things around him. His works mainly involve figure painting and landscape painting. Regardless of the subject matter, Youchang can skillfully create an atmosphere in terms of intention, composition, space and the relationship between objects. In terms of color handling, he incorporates direct painting methods from the Impressionist movement, skillfully manipulating techniques such as handling of light and shadow, warm and cool tones, and contrasting colors to craft his envisioned visual effects. In Youchang's works, we can also see his application of the techniques of dots, lines and planes in traditional Chinese painting. Through the varying thickness of colors and the interplay of strong and weak brushstrokes, he weaves together various factors to create a plain poetic atmosphere in the paintings, thus achieving artistic freedom and spiritual liberation.

In his paintings, Youchang uses realistic painting to shape the "form", carrying his personal life experiences and feelings, as well as his yearning and longing for history, tradition, local customs, ethnic culture and humanistic sentiments. His oil paintings transition from a realistic approach to a form characterized by "intention", further enhancing the artistic conception of his works and making them vivid and charming. His landscape paintings are not mere representations of the physical world and the selection of subjects and the composition of the scenes are permeated with political, cultural and conceptual elements. As Cosgrove puts it, Landscape painting is a subjective form and it is an ideological concept that showcases how people of a specific class self-represent through their imaginative relationship with nature. Mr. Li Youchang has a considerable number of paintings depicting the warm scenery of the Daliang Mountains in Sichuan. This leaves us with more questions and reflections after viewing his works: Why is the artist so devoted to portraying the Daliang Mountains? This is because he has an inseparable emotional bond with the Daliang Mountains. Having grown up in this land, he will retire from his teaching career next year, and as the saying goes, "The land always shapes its people". This is his best way of repaying nature through art, and it helps us understand the profound sentiment and poetic essence present in his works. Of course, there are various paths we can take to enter the painter's world of ideal pursuits. It is not because of the artist's profound technique or the richness of the content portrayed, but rather the palpable aura, the long-lost purity and freshness, the freedom and sincerity that strike me deeply and move me. In fact, the origin of art is often rooted in the pursuit of free expression by humans. Who can say that this is not closer to the essence of art?

Painting with a calm mind portrays a state of freedom and conveys a poetic state of mind, a close perception of life. I hope that Youchang's artistic path will continue to broaden.

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