Bicycles are a subject that I have been focusing on since I was an undergraduate, and I have been working on it for several years now. Bicycles are an object that has a special sense of age for Chinese, and seems to have a symbolic character: the elderly have a sense of reminiscing about the past, while for our younger generation, it represents youth and childhood. Wang Xiaoshuai once used bicycles as symbols in the movie "Seventeen-Year-Old Bicycle" to tell the meaninglessness of the same bicycle in the world of two boys, as well as their different cruel youth.
Pan Xinquan, Bicycle Triptych, oil on canvas, 160cm×270cm
It should be said that every Chinese has a special affection for bicycles, and I rode to class almost every day during college and back to the dormitory after school. Whether it is a dormitory or a teaching building, there are bicycle sheds: there are old cement carports, and there are now new stainless steel carports. Touching bicycles and passing by the bicycle shed every day, over time, the image of the bicycle and the bicycle shed in this way came to my mind.
I don't know when I felt that such a scene could be included in the painting. So I tried to paint it with the experience I had gained from my earlier creations, and slowly I developed my own series of bicycle sheds.
Pan Xinquan, Bicycle under the Overpass, oil on canvas, 180cm×110cm
The main body of the bicycle is a very life-oriented, life-like object, and the bicycle shape structure seems to be dominated by lines. Therefore, when I draw bicycles, I use freehand techniques and traditional lines to express them. I usually use black, white, and gray lines because in my personal opinion, it would be more appropriate for the image of a bicycle. Of course, there are many painters who use Chinese freehand lines in their oil paintings, such as Wu Guanzhong's lines are very soft, and Zhao Kaikun's sewing machines are full of interesting threads, and I have learned some of them and used them in my bicycle series.
Pan Xinquan, Carport, Oil on canvas, 160cm×180cm
In addition to paying attention to the line, when I drew the bicycle series, I also used the method of overlapping multiple bikes and repeating the units. According to Arnheim, "Overlap is the main method of causing deviation from basic visual concepts. Overlap is created when one unit partially masks another unit behind it. Overlapping can occur both within one object and in the arrangement of multiple objects. "The overlapping method has been used by most artists in their works: Duchamp used the overlapping method in "Woman Descending the Stairs" to express the momentary dynamics of a woman descending the stairs; The four-eyed god in the mural of Yongle Palace in the Ming Dynasty makes the viewer dazzled; The small Buddha shrines densely packed in the west wall of the first thing cave in Yungang Grottoes are also in the form of repetition to give people a sense of magnificence...... In the bicycle project, I use the black, white and gray lines of the bicycle to repeatedly superimpose them in the picture to express the overlapping effect of multiple bicycles, so that the picture is more visually impactful.
Pan Xinquan, Electric Car Under the Overpass, oil on canvas, 110cm×90cm
I've always been interested in mechanical objects, so I tried to draw big trucks, toy cars, classic cars, electric cars, motorcycles, and so on before I drew the bicycle series. At that time, I liked mechanical aesthetics, although I didn't have too much in-depth research, but I also did some superficial understanding of industrial design. At that time, an American commercial movie "Transformers" that was popular in the United States left a deep impression on me, those mechanical warriors with complex structure, powerful and rapid changes, occupied our vision and even our hearts, so that whenever I watched this series of movies, I always remembered the childhood hit animation "Astro Boy", and it was these influences that made me draw that batch of cars. At that time, I had no experience in drawing cars, so I used a more naïve and direct method, so I wanted to make every part and screw very interesting, but I found that I couldn't express that kind of fun to the extreme, so I was distressed. It wasn't until the tutor showed me Zhao Kaikun's work "Sewing Machine" that I felt a little "suddenly enlightened", and I suddenly realized that I could also use the line directly to deal with the picture in this way, those skillful and uninhibited lines, hearty, happy and enmity, the lines and lines were flavorful, and the lines were interesting - it is undeniable that I was touched by some touches in my heart after seeing them, and I also seriously pondered for a long time.
Pan Xinquan, Bicycle in front of the public school building of Western University, oil on canvas, 160cm×180cm
In my subsequent creations, there are more or less similar lines to Zhao Kaikun. Zhao Kaikun once said in his notebook: "The most attractive part of easel painting is still the fun in handiwork. This part also implies the outpouring of people's emotions, so where does the fun in handicrafts come from? It is an objectively sensitive discovery and a momentary judgment. Zhao Kaikun's words are reminiscent of today's materialistic society, where people's lives are excessively regular, and the fast-food life is less static and less intriguing. In short, it is like eating noodles, where you can eat instant noodles directly under boiling water, but eating a bowl of noodles at an authentic ramen restaurant requires several steps from kneading the dough to cooking the noodles. In the aesthetic theory of mechanical reproduction proposed by Benjamin, the artwork has reproducibility, but compared with easel painting, easel painting has more resonance between the viewer and the painter through the sense of interest and uniqueness generated by hand, which cannot be achieved by art reproduction.
Pan Xinquan, Parking Place, oil on canvas, 180cm×160cm
In this series of bicycle creations, I just want to look for the kind of clumsy taste of hand-painting, not deliberately painting the bicycle crookedly, nor deliberately scribbling like a child, but inadvertently forming between the speed and slow control of the pen, or straight, or curved, or stupid, or sharp, all under the stroke of a thought, do not do a little extra thinking, pay attention to one go. Thinking too much will make the picture muddy and watery, increase the pressure of the pen, and make the picture look not free and easy, so I think and experiment more when making small sketches: before each big creation, I always have to make many small sketches, repeatedly experiment with the form of the picture, seek various texture changes, until I am confident, and then I start to create a big one. In the big creation, there may be some accidents that make it different from the previously expected or originally designed sketches, but painting is to grasp the accident of the picture from time to time, and the sense of unpredictability in the painting process is also a kind of fun in painting itself.
Pan Xinquan, Shadow of the Car Downstairs, oil on canvas, 170cm×145cm
The bicycle series is my exploration on the road of sinicization of oil painting, and old-timers such as Lin Fengmian, Wu Guanzhong, Zao Wou-Ki, and Chu Teh-Chun have long integrated oil painting with traditional Chinese painting. In the bicycle series, I also learned the bold and freehand lines under the metaphysics, and in some places even directly learned the "blank space" of Chinese painting. In terms of the structure of points, lines and surfaces, I deliberately arranged the lines and spatial directions to realize the transformation from three-dimensional space to two-dimensional space, so as to highlight the interest of bicycles, which are living objects.
I think that the bicycle series has only recently come to an end, but it does not mean that it is over. I'll also draw on the experience of painting in other series, and then go back to creating bikes and look for new breakthroughs.
(Text/Pan Xinquan)
Pan Xinquan, Bicycle next to the supermarket, oil on canvas, 160cm×180cm
Pan Xinquan, Blue Bicycle Shed, oil on canvas, 145cm×170cm
Pan Xinquan, Yellow Parking Shed, oil on canvas, 110cm×90cm
Pan Xinquan, Notice, oil on canvas, 145cm×170cm
Pan Xinquan, Two and a Half Points, oil on canvas, 120cm×100cm
Pan Xinquan, Mazu Temple 2, oil on canvas, 160cm×110cm
Pan Xinquan, Car Shadow, oil on canvas, 120cm×100cm
Pan Xinquan, Mazu Temple 3, oil on canvas, 160cm×110cm
(Source: Art Time)
Artist Profile
Pan Xinquan, male, Han nationality, born in Guangxi in 1987, member of the Chinese Artists Association, member of the 80 Oil Painting Society, Wu Guanzhong Art Museum Distinguished Painter, 2007-2015 studied at the School of Fine Arts of Guangxi University of Arts, under the tutelage of Professor Xie Sen, with a master's degree in oil painting, and has taught at Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou Institute of Science and Technology, Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts Special Education Class, and now lives in Quanzhou, Fujian, teaching at Quanzhou Institute of Information Engineering.