Dong Xiaoming's experiments in the comprehensive media of ink and wash are actually the result of his long-term rational thinking on the subject of contemporary development of ink and wash art. He is

Dong Xiaoming's experiments in the comprehensive media of ink and wash are actually the result of his long-term rational thinking on the subject of contemporary development of ink and wash art. He is well aware that the expansion of traditional ink art is an artistic problem and even a cultural problem. For many years, he has promoted Chinese ink painting experiments and artistic research as an organizer, and explored the survival status of traditional ink painting in the contemporary cultural context. He has also continued to expand the expressive scope and scope of ink painting art as a practitioner. expressiveness. What he did was, firstly, to solve the problem of "subjectivity" in ink art. The solution is not to continue the tradition, but to update the concept, bring ink into the contemporary cultural context, so that it can form a new growth point in the new cultural context, thereby internally constructing a new subjectivity of ink art. The second is to solve the problem of "publicity" in ink art. The solution is to try to use comprehensive materials and comprehensive methods to form a comprehensive language, so that the world of ink and wash can be opened up and a "publicity" can be formed. " space. I believe that Dong Xiaoming's works can allow audiences with different cultural backgrounds to see the cultural ideals of Chinese contemporary artists and see the face of Chinese contemporary art from tradition to innovation. (Fan Di'an)The Zen meditation lotus in contemporary visual experience is a cultural symbol that symbolizes the character of Chinese literati. From ancient times to the present, literati and poets have mostly used lotus paintings to convey a spiritual integrity that is pure and untainted. Perhaps, at the level of visual aesthetics, there is no big difference between the lotus flowers in Chinese literati paintings. The reason why painting lotuses has become an everlasting theme of literati painters in the past dynasties is that: on the one hand, the process of painting lotus has become a spiritual transition for Chinese cultural people to cleanse their souls and cultivate their sentiments in the ups and downs of officialdom; on the other hand, through long-term Cultivation and tempering form a unique pen and ink personality, thus giving the lotus flowers with the same pattern different aesthetic qualities and aesthetic realms. For example, the coolness of the eight lotuses, the simplicity of the Laofou lotus, the free and easy lotus of the Daqian lotus, the sadness of the Sicong lotus, etc. The rich aesthetic character of these lotus images is the manifestation of the painter's personal ink projected on his life. The lotus flower, which has a similar visual pattern, is constantly filled with new aesthetic images due to the projection of the personality of the pen and ink.

Compared with the established aesthetic taste, Dong Xiaoming’s lotus does not continue the traditional path of melting and tempering individual brushwork, but focuses on the modern ink exploration of lotus. Although modern ink painting evolved from traditional Chinese painting, it has distanced itself from the aesthetic characteristics of traditional Chinese painting, which uses calligraphy language as the language of brush and ink, and pays more attention to the aesthetic role of shape, pattern, and image language in painting. In Dong Xiaoming's series of ink lotus paintings, on the one hand, he seeks to express the expressive meaning of the lotus calligraphy language through the use of thirsty brushes, presenting a light and Zen feeling beyond the pen and ink; on the other hand, he microscopically amplifies this calligraphy language and combines it with modern vision. Structural integration, using media texture and ink flux to increase the level of expression of language and the cultural connotation of connotation. In his early exploration of ink painting, in order to enhance the tension of his large-scale lotus pond paintings, he even tried to use new media such as linen or acrylic to create unique picture textures and physical textures. Obviously, as an exploration of modern ink painting, Dong Xiaoming has experimented with various ink media and ink-related media, constantly expanding his horizons of ink expression. His ink lotus flowers thus possess an aesthetic appeal that is different from the traditional pen and ink lotus flowers. This means that it is rich in the mysterious and light realm of traditional pen and ink, but also has the material beauty of modern media and the spatial awareness of the integration of modern media structures.

In addition to the new image of lotus flowers given to him by new media, Dong Xiaoming also attaches great importance to the absorption of image language, especially digital image language. He does not use images to replace his own observation and presentation of aesthetic objects, but pursues the decomposition, stripping and reorganization of natural objects by digital image language, and pursues the unique visual interest and illusive Zen state of digital image language. He even input the Chinese lotus paintings that he created on a small scale into the computer, and through the recombination of digital image language, he re-created the ink lotus with digital characteristics.

Those works seem to be a microscopic enlargement and re-decomposition of the pen and ink lotus pond. The large areas of high-key and gray tones convey the unique sense of detachment and ethereal sanctity of traditional Chinese paintings, but the language form has the novelty and charm of digital language images. Some Due to the replantation and transformation of digital language, the traditional pen and ink style, meaning and speed of pen and ink have formed the fantasy of reversed images, thus giving people a super-sensory experience of traditional cultural connotations.

Dong Xiaoming’s ink painting lotus’ positive acceptance of image language has enabled him to gradually expand from two-dimensional paintings on paper and cloth to installation ink on metal planes and three-dimensional spaces. The ink lotus on the metal surface is an installation-like work that is transformed from an ink image onto an etched copper plate. It organically combines the digital language of ink and etching with the language of etched copperplate. It not only has the transparency of ink and the fantasy of digital, but also has the gold and stone flavor and sharpness of copperplate etching. The huge and dignified copper plate itself, after natural oxidation, has a mysterious and mysterious quality of ink and wash, and a sense of solid, deep and simple material. Letting the media ontology speak is a strategy of contemporary art. The media nature of modern ink and the use of ready-made products in installation works emphasize the language tension of the medium itself and the cultural connotation of the medium itself in expressing the subject's artistic concept. It is precisely because of his profound understanding of digital images that Dong Xiaoming's ink lotus paintings have moved from two-dimensional paintings to three-dimensional installations. He made many lotus pond square towns, molding and welding pieces of wind lotus and fragrant lotus floating in the pond with bronze. The quiet, water-like, silent metal device is between abstraction and figuration. It looks like a flower but not a flower, a lotus but not a lotus. It can be said that the pond is full of natural life and full of humanistic mind. The ink image projected on the surface of the sky and the earth is somewhere between time and space, like ink but not ink, a lotus but not a lotus. It can be described as the elegance of a pond and the dream of a lotus root pond. In his video installations, what still shocks people is the distant traditional cultural charm of Zen. The way of artistic presentation and the use of new media allow people to enjoy an unprecedented new visual and auditory experience. Indeed, what Dong Xiaoming pursues in various expression media, mainly ink, is the traditional cultural connotation in this contemporary visual experience. For Dong Xiaoming, what changes are the patterns and images in various media, but what remains unchanged is his awe and understanding of the realm of traditional Chinese culture.

From ink lotus to digital lotus, and then from image lotus to installation lotus, Dong Xiaoming has been trying to interpret his understanding and experience of traditional culture through modern art concepts. Although contemporary urban life and contemporary information dissemination have changed our lifestyles to a great extent, the psychological structure and way of thinking of national culture are still as stubbornly genetically derived as life chromosomes. The vitality of traditional culture may be greater than we imagined. Be strong and strong. This is an insurmountable cultural proposition that we are constantly reflecting on as we absorb nutrients from foreign cultures and explore the construction of contemporary culture. The reason why Dong Xiaoming always chooses lotus as his creative motif in his artistic creations is probably because of the reinterpretation of lotus as a symbol of Chinese culture and the reinterpretation of visual perception and scene replacement in different historical and cultural contexts. Regardless of whether he uses ink, digital, video, or installation, those conceptual concepts and media breakthroughs still revolve around the images of traditional culture. He organically mixes the contemporary experience of sight and hearing with the elegance and depth of Zen perception, thus demonstrating his aesthetic thinking and exploration of the construction of contemporary Chinese culture.

The lotus root and lotus in the lotus pond, the character expression of Chinese intellectuals in the farming era, has become a poetic dwelling place for contemporary cultural concepts and artistic experience. (Shang Hui//Ph.D. in Art History, Research Librarian, Executive Editor of "Art" magazine of China Artists Association)