修身养性－谢艾格雕塑作品展_中国书画网---中国艺术权威门户网站,弘扬民族文化,传承艺术精华

追求真理，探寻未知世界，修得智慧与美满，一直存在于谢艾格的世界。也许是害怕城市的冷漠与浮浅，泥土正好为显得一直有些孤单和苦涩的谢艾格塑造了另外一片世界，也提供了力量。去掉所有的枷锁，回归本性，探索人性精神世界，追寻中国人的独特气质和哲学精神。谢艾格的灵感来源于她自己的生活方式以及思考模式，不同的是在谢艾格的作品还有一种纯朴和谐的宁静正与我们如今这个忙碌而表面化的人性形态形成对比。谢艾格与其作品从不受外界的影响,也没有借助任何模特去塑造那些形象,然而她和材料、人性精神、作品形态形成了一种互为和谐的优美的视觉和心灵感受。

了解谢艾格, 是在她那间有着一百平方米的工作室里，这里既存放着那些费尽心智创造的作品，又随意地留下了劳作中的痕迹，因此可以看到艺术家的生活创作状态。有些孤独与焦虑气质的谢艾格，带着她那单纯的表情，就在这里向我叙述了她从艺的经历。虽然只是短短一小时的交谈，却再一次加深了我对她的印象，也印证了我的观点—— 把艺术还原到生活中，提升到精神层面上，能让所有感应到艺术的人拓展生命的意义。

有些评论家喜欢把艺术谈得高深莫测，用玄学般的言词将艺术家的创作对号入座。在我看来，艺术虽然是人类精神活动的方式，但呈现出来的却是细腻而又生动的形态。在人类发展的长河中，不同的艺术情感，给予一代又一代的人们以生命活力和精神慰藉。艺术是清晰的，可以理解的，也是可以叙说的，它非常简单地发生在任何地方，它的神奇光芒是因为有了创造性的想象、创造性的结构与创造性的表现形态而熠熠闪亮。由此来看谢艾格的作品，便让我想到了如何完善艺术与人（包括作者和受众）的关系，我们无须用太多的深沉话语去解释她的创作，她所有的作品都是点燃了生命的灵光。

我以前从没见过谢艾格的作品，走进她工作室的一瞬间，看到的是一个个直立的人形陶雕，每个大约有一米多高，造型语言极其简练，脸上没有明确的五官，但有着呆滞懒散的神态。几乎所有的人物造型都是女性，或坐或站。一组组的人物陶雕作品如队列阵势般地排开，很有扩展的空间感，其中有的组合将稚拙的云朵和人物搭配在一起，似乎蕴涵了一些观念。看到这些作品，给人的第一感觉是相当富有意味。在她的作品前，人们也许会想到意大利艺术家莫迪里尔尼的人物画像，只是谢艾格的人物雕像没有莫迪里尔尼画中人物中那样带有音乐感的忧郁和感伤，然而作品中传递的情绪仿佛都一样，即有一种抽象的情绪方式弥漫在空间中，并且多了几分享受孤单的自由和浪漫。谢艾格的人物陶雕，那一个个慵懒的表情，形态一律的造型，将艺术家的主观性带入了创作之中，可以看出，这些以粉彩着色的陶雕非常吻合谢艾格自身的单纯性，而且，她的陶雕因为有着足够的尺寸而显得充满视觉力量, 也很讨人喜欢。看谢艾格作品，再反观谢艾格本人，会发现她很自我，那种自我的情绪以女性的方式藏匿和释放。也许在谢艾格现在的年龄，女人都会把自己的梦编成一些故事，以一种既烂漫又简化的方式呈现出来，并执著地在自己的天地里爱护着。谢艾格的作品，恰恰是很巧妙地捕捉了这样一种女性的生活美学，一种孤独的希冀与梦幻。

我想，把谢艾格的艺术还原到最简单的状态来解读，也许最符合她。非常有意思的是，谢艾格有着现在青年人所有的幻想，所有渴望成功的欲望。也许，这种对生命完美价值的难以企及的追求，引发了她气质上的迷离和感性上的孤立。她的作品，深深地包含了自己的个人气息，那一个个直立的女人，好像是她自身的转换，所有的情绪都带有现代人自我陶醉和封闭性的特征，同时还带着一点朦胧的梦幻。这些原生态的生动的个体情绪与意念，构成了谢艾格作品的深度和美感。谢艾格出生在湖南的一个农民家庭里，自幼就有着一个喜爱和亲近大自然并涌动着小小诗意的头脑，喜欢简单的东西和简单的情感，同时又喜欢以抽象的提炼来传达情绪。至今，她生命的一头在上海这个大都市，另一头却牢牢地连接着她的家乡湖南山区。所以，在谢艾格的作品里，可以看到她以固有的质朴单纯来坚守对人生与人性的认识，而不让自己被大城市的价值观所改变。她以安静和简单的人物造型作为自己的形式语言，她的艺术方式其实也就是她的生活方式。她心灵中那种单纯的美，在进入艺术创造之后，却以丰富的个体样式呈现出来。

谈到谢艾格的作品必定要谈到烧陶。烧陶本是一种手工艺，应该是一个有趣而充满意念的工作。烧陶过程中体验的是陶土、彩釉和火的关系，这其中有着积累长久的前人经验。但谢艾格却摈弃了对传统烧陶的效仿，她似乎一直想为自己的梦幻寻找一个沉重的载体，所以诞生于火焰之中、既易造型又有着天然粗糙的烧陶，理所当然地成为了她的艺术选择。谢艾格因生活的偶然而接触到陶艺，随后就认定了烧陶并将这种工艺扩展为艺术，这个发展过程也许是她自己没有想到的，也许，她注定了要与土为乐。谢艾格的陶雕作品在很大意义上是跨越了艺术与工艺的分界，她把雕塑与烧陶合而为一，从2006年开始烧制大型的陶雕人物作品，这其中无疑经历了艰辛的探索过程。事实上，艺术家的取材与用材都有着自己的某种感应因素，如果要在感应与实践的交叉往返过程中步步深入，那需要执著的观念力量和不断丰富的艺术灵感。在我看来，谢艾格敢做大型的陶雕与她目前居住的城市有关，和她走到今日的生活有关。大型陶雕可以给她一种挑战，她期待着在这种挑战的过程中不断增强自身的创造力量，以达到她梦想的目标。对她来说，无论生活还是艺术，都急切地盼望着这种超越。

You come to know Xie Ai’ge better once you embark on a visit to her over 100-quare-meter workshop where exquisitely made pottery creations are displayed and traces of her life are sensed. Xie, wearing a lonely but anxious and pure expression, started to elaborate on her way leading to art creation. Although the one-hour talk could not give me an entire picture of Xie, it still deepened my understanding of her and reinforced my viewpoint that art derives from life, aiming at better exploring significance of human existence.

Quite a few critics are keen on playing up art, commenting artistic creations in a metaphysical manner. In my opinion, artists paint with the psychology of the modern man, depicting detail-oriented, true emotions and brushing out human joys and sorrows in a delicate and vivid way. In the long process of human development, human beings have been inspired and revitalized by a multitude of art forms and feelings conveyed by art works generations after generations. Art works are understandable and vivid, closely incorporating creative mentality together with imaginative ideas. Xie’s creations, enlightened with life’s wisdom, are an embodiment of obscure beauty with flowing beauty, making people better understand the relationship between artistic realm and human beings.

I have never seen her works before. Upon entering her workshop, I was dazzled by an array of upstanding human-shaped pottery sculptures as high as more than 1 meter. Plain and simple, these female-shaped sculptures featuring no clear facial features wore indolent and stagnant expressions, sitting or standing there, enjoying freedom and romance with loneliness. The transition of well-arrayed sculptures from a plane form to the present stereoscopic model represents the instantaneous flashes of so-called time-space art, which is full of symbolic implications and visual impact. You might conjure up with human pictures by Italian artist Modigliani. However, Xie’s works are short of a mist of sadness depicted by Modigliani and her creations bring flowing rhythm to the result of pottery sculpture, which appeal to visitors. Given her pottery works and her age, you will discover that the painter enjoys harboring and expressing her emotions at the same time. Xie’s pottery, resembling a seemingly lonely but joyous castle，carefully captures this female-oriented aesthetics and life style, which is characterized by lonely dreaming and expectations.

I am of the view that the best approach to understand Xie’s works is to view them with simplicity. Xie is endowed with both dreams and desire for success typical of the current young generation. It is perhaps because of her perfectionism combined with expectations for hard-obtained success lead to her metal isolation and confusion. Her potter embraces her own emotions, depicting self-isolation, self-intoxication together with dream-like feelings characteristic of contemporary cosmopolitan people. Born in a peasant family in Hunan province, Xie is born with poetic emotions, enjoying getting close to nature. She favors simple things and simple feelings while keeping using abstraction to express her ideas. When living in Shanghai, Xie is still linked to her hometown of Hunan province. Therefore, we can still find perseverance, simplicity, purity and truth in her works, all of which can hardly be influenced by cosmopolitan philosophy and values. By employing plain and simple style as her way of artistic expression, she demonstrates her way of life and purity of her mind.

Talk of Xie’s works, we can not afford to neglect pottery making. Known as a kind of handwork, pottery creation involves both great creation and imagination. It is closely related to mud, glaze, fire and rich experience accumulated by remote ancestors. By abandoning traditional ideas of pottery making, Xie persists in finding a new embodiment of pursuing her dreams by integrating pottery making with sculpture. Therefore, she chooses nothing but crude and natural pottery making. Xie realizes the importance of pottery by coincidence and she employs it as an artistic approach of expressing her in-depth emotions, linking her closely to this ancient art work. She has embarked on the road of making human-shaped large pottery since 2006, which undoubtedly is a road full of arduous explorations. As a matter of fact, artists have to experiment with materials and techniques continuously, which needs to be inspired with rich resources and great persistence. The reason why she dares to make large pottery sculpture has something to do with her life and the city where she is living now. She is challenged by arduousness of new possibility, by her potential of creativity and long-cherished dreams. She is longing for surpassing others no matter in art or in life.