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| Chen Ke: Don't get lost in the crowds |
| Michelle Shao |
Chen Ke has begun to remember the past already.
"Super Girl" in 2005 touched he most sensitive part of the new century, which prompted entertainment to become the people's collective event and then created social phenomena. The world speeds up and it is hard for people to stop the world's acceleration. However, Chen Ke began his journal in order to remember his past through his canvas. In 2005, when entertainment became a collective event, he began to review history.
He reimagined the year 1950 in the People's Republic of China. In his eyes, the past gradually transforms into an old train, slowly runs on a bright, honest, and ebullient path that is composed of meat. Like the scatter of history, the train makes small stops and quickly leaves the stops after people's greetings.
Meat is Chen Ke's distinct signature, the vehicle he chooses to represent the avid transformation of past times into contemporary reality. For Chen Ke, meat is the symbol of flowing time, and its function equates to gliding, an hourglass, the voice of the cornet, linking the beginning to ending, through which Chen Ke gains speed, power, weight, space; and justice, sympathy, empathy, and belief.
The birth of a new style always results from the breakdown of the previous principle and structure or the birth of a new skill. Chen Ke is unique because of this. He lets go of bias and self-constraint, and transfers the past into contemporary reality. Chen Ke uses meat as a way to express his understanding of history and reality. Chen Ke's meat painting is straightforward, primitive, and all-in-one. His art is against salon-style beauty, and is based on objective account of the motif.
Is Chen Ke the last person who reviews the history again and again? I do not know. Behind Chen Ke, a new generation uses careful ways to release their historical burden. They feel comfortable with the material world, as if they are the kings of the world.
But, only after experiencing the history, people could express sincerity. Chen Ke is able to depict what he thinks, turning his deep soul and profound empathy into his canvas. The artist's brushstrokes touch feeling and freeze it on the canvas because he has empathy for history and watches human beings and life. His works are about humanity.
Chen Ke's recent paintings are rich and could not have been created without deep knowledge, training, and practice. Chen Ke is superbly skillful. Unlike a good butcher who knows how to treat a cow, meat is used as Chen Ke's surgery knife. He uses it as fluently as if it dances. The coldness of the knife reflects its sharpness. Wherever the knife reaches, it symbolizes a break and a release.
This is real power.
A truly brave man needs to confront deprived life, according Lu Xun. When a new-aged, giant craft breaks the wave and removes the wilderness, it overturns social structure and consciousness. When human beings lose the metaphysical standard that is transformed by values and experiences over centuries, Chen Ke intends to use his paintings to freeze the moment of history, a transience that is yet stronger than bronze. His paintings are appreciated by himself and by followers.
Warm and determined.
Remember and anticipate Chen Ke! |
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