Preface
Wentao Is a Taciturn Person
In 1994 when I finished my studies in Germany, I worked as a teacher in the Printmaking Department. Wentao studied in my first undergraduate class. At that time, he was inconspicuous and actually rather quiet. Within a few years after graduation he created a lot of paintings and prints, the format of which was mainly abstract geometrical shapes using textures as the basic element. He was accustomed to working through the nights and sleeping during the days. The amount of Wentao's works was considerable, and he never explained much about them. It seemed like he just did similar things everyday. This character of him lasted for many years.
After Wentao studied in the USA, he came back to China and became a teacher in 2006. There were changes in his work habits, and the abstract geometrical style of his paintings became more and more obvious. But the colorful and changeable life and experiences in the United States failed to change his silent characteristic. Even when you appreciate his works and discuss them with him, it is still very hard for you to find the meaning.
If appreciated with one's intuition, Wentao's works inspire such words as abstract, geometry, and reason. But it's hard to understand the true meaning of the works in this way.
Two years ago, I had a chance to appreciate Wentao's prints in New York City. They were composed of blue squares full of illusions, and reminded me of a small square of blue sky hidden in between the skyscrapers. After returning back to China, he extracted this square from the blue background, ignored the surroundings of this "blue sky"outstand the square, and looked for a new dimension from the inside.
This dimension is not constructed by perspective. He tries to refract the existence of another plane on the paper, to construct a plane through superimposed lines to coincide with the paper. In his new works, there is always an irregular quadrilateral, inside of which there is another one.It seems like that they are painted after rational analysis of structures and spaces. But the sober and rational characteristics of his works are misunderstandings by the audience. I think that his understandings and feelings of spaces and lines are emotional and intuitional. These works are full of exquisite and abundant emotion. They are the products of emotional feelings.
I feel that Wentao is just like a silent laborer. His thought is not complicated or esoteric outwardly although he creates his works through many media like painting, etching and drawing with graphite pencils, and just kept playing the "square" games for more than ten years. Wentao always explains his works ambiguously or just laughs. It reminds me of the saying that wealth is always hidden in the barren and deserted Gobi. Maybe Wentao's attitude will evoke more fierce desire to research his works.
Painting itself is a type of visual art, which is hard to be expressed by words. Sometimes, artists need to use something else to express themselves, and at the same time they just keep unnecessary words in their mind.
To Wentao, art is not only a way of thinking; it is rather a way of living.
20th Aug. 2007
