As a teacher of Feng Zhengjie’s, I have viewed his works from the beginning to the end, including those mature, puerile and even naive ones. Being different from other young painters, he has had something affirmed in his creations from the very beginning, sometimes to a stubborn extent. In the past he painted popular singers, heroes and ordinary people around, not to discribe the state of life in the environment, but to expose the fleshes in all directions by skinning the painted figures with a kind of cruelty-exerting psychology. Feng feels worried and restless in the blustering pop culture, the pretentious political atmosphere and the happy but suffocating daily life. He wants to say, to do and to find something. However, the ideal is gone and the history becomes nothing. The only thing left in the paintings is the revenge on reality. Only thinking of the nature occasionally does he paint a little gently, yet the samples of the bony birds look so sharp. Facing the works of Feng Zhengjie and his generation, originally I felt suspicious. They haven’t experienced so many historical disasters and sufferings in life and they have been living in a ‘happy ’life since they were sensible. Why don’t their works look mild? Compared with so-called ‘New Generation’ born in 1960s, they neither treat history in a teasing language, nor treat life cynically, nor, it seems that, plan the future for their arts in an opportunistic psychology. To them, art has become a kind of personal faith and a backing in life again. So, after grinning cheekly, we once again feel a longlast artistic form---seriousness and thinking. This trend of creation after New Generation, or ‘Post-New Generation ’phenomenon, I think, is well worth paying close attention to.

　　From this viewpoint to view Feng Zhengjie’s latest works, we will see a lot of interesting things.

　　He has named his latest works as SKIN series which includes a big group of bright red nudes, probably with three intentionsbelow:1),to change the over-rationalized trend in his old works, turning analyzing into feeling. And the expressing of dermal sensation is just the most perceptual;2), From skinning skin to describing skin, the artist doesn’t mean to make viewers accept some ideas in an exerting way, but to incarnate the entertaining culture which is centred on carnalism. Both the describing and revealing are more direat;3), The accumulation of nudes is more striking visually. Mottled ulcer makes viewers gooseflesh by transmitting visual sence to dermal sensation. So it makes people astonished and leads to thinking.

　　Feng Zhengjie’s works have a very strong sence of idea. His paintings present not scenes of reality, but simplied and plannar images. Once in a while some little conbined pictures are added to produce contrast and to increase the difficulty of feeling. Facing his works, people will naturally think of the resnlts by pleasure-seeking culture like Aids. In fact how can people not experience the experience the reaction to reality in spirit! It Is just the artist’s ‘allergic reaotion’ in spirtt that reminds of people not to sink into the habitual life. The ulcerating of beautiful skin is startling, while Feng is just to depict the beautiful shocking, so he doesn’t play up the ugliness of scars. The controlling over sense organ shows Peng’s creative train of thought which is neither to praise nor to profane, but to reveal man in away stressing one point. It is the self-choice of holding one point and abandoning others, the self-question-ing psychology which keeps at a distance from reality, that make the creations of Post-New Generation both different from that of Old Russianists in 1985 and from that of New Generation after 1989. However, frankly speak-ing, they have more common points with those in 85 times.

　　Of course, Feng Zhengjie is just one of Post-New Generation. His creation is no doubt a signal. But when many of such signal lamps lighten, should criticism have a certain sensitivety?

　　Written in Qiexianju,

　　Chengdu art Salon

　　Feb. 29th, 1996 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


　　Note: The text was published in ‘Recounting of Skin’, 1996