the detail of expressionism. He Sen began to recall his own artistic history, he even returned to the

experimentalism of 1990; in works completed in 1998, Girl biting hands, Wandering, Scream, Self-

portrait – Hiding face, we see a summary of his previous works: a return to “paper”, the cleanliness of

realism as well as expressive brushwork. However, the artist began to calmly study his compositions,

he courageously gave up complex and unclear content, and reduced his expressive brushwork to a

minimum. Light has become a crucial element influencing his composition – especially the abrupt

light that made people’s eye disappear. This was an era in which digital photography replaced film,

free and careless use of the camera became possible. It is not important when He Sen began to pay

attention to the special effects of lights on images and photographs, especially in situations without

specific manipulation, but this provided the artist with important clues. We also are unclear on when

He Sen began paying attention to Richter’s work, but he mentioned that he really enjoyed the art of

this German artist. Obviously, the Western artist’s experience also served to provide encouragement

and inspiration for He Sen’s experiments. Overall, among all the possibilities, He Sen chose the

effects of photography, just as Richter once said, “photography once attempted to achieve the effects

of paintings, today, works on canvas are beginning to learn from photography.” Such an opinion is

also supported by Duchamp’s observations, images painted in the form of photographs can also be

productive of new conceptual compositions. The girl lying on a sofa became the earliest bold trial in

using photographic effects – completed in 1998, it was a shot without planning, it was a spontaneous

flash. Up to 1999, this sort of coincidence was of great assistance to He Sen; he completed a large

number of works of this type. He completely abandoned expressive methods, and seemed to think

that adding coincidental factors onto the canvas directly would be sufficient – this was He Sen’s new

turning point.

Certainly, unlike other artists who use photographs in their painting, He Sen remains cautious; he

has noticed the effects of light, however, by highlighting those effects, and especially highlighting

the simplification of forms caused by the flash, he creates a unique mood. Therefore, if we check

the photographs He Sen refers to, we discover that the artist relies on the visual inertia led to by the

simplification of form to purposefully wipe off the eyes of the human subjects. He Sen once said, “the

previous Accumulation series took “stone sculpture” as the original inspiration, and stone sculptures

have no eyes; thus, when I switched to girls, they also had no eyes”. However, in the actual situation,

this is not necessarily because when “the flash goes on, people’s eyes become undefined”, the artist has

only appropriated people’s visual understanding of the flash’s effect – intentionally erasing the eyes.

Such manipulation is very important, because through it He Sen has an opportunity to underscore

the fear that has always be present in his heart – this kind of mental state has been directly revealed

in expressionism. Now, the artist has added another thought to the images, “the girls in my paintings

don’t have eyes because I believe there is an unreachable distance between people, making them

unable to clearly recognize reality. They are confused, cold, and see reality without actual attention.”

(Female Portraits, Social Projection? Ke Ning, June, 2006)

He Sen has finally discovered an experimental path that he feels comfortable with, the concept

of painting photographs allows him to apply his solid realist techniques and abilities without

any obstacles, the subject matter and its content allow him to distance himself from the endless

caricaturing of “beautiful” subjects. With such conceptual support he has begun an endless

representation of girls: their poses are listless and uninterested, with no particular purpose, even

their unwillingness to answer the telephone gives a viewer the impression of an unbearable boredom;

they also lack class and elegance in a public setting – all of this is the kind of thing that vulgar and

attract voyeurism. At the same time, we notice that even as decorative props have been taken out of

the photographs, the artist has kept or added toys which are usually white, on the ground, on sofas or

being held by his subjects. When He Sen, answering a critic’s probing, explained his reason for using

the toys, he said, “Everyone’s growth is accompanied by a sense of loss. Like the eyeless girls I paint,

as well as the toys on the sofa in a closed space – all convey the emotions of childhood.” (“My work

is to understand others and myself through art” – interview with He Sen), of course this is a rather

personal feeling and understanding. What needs to be emphasized now is that everyone has their

own understanding of growth and time, such a fear is relevant to one’s aging and the situation of

one’s path, no matter what the artist’s life is like in particular.

In 1999, He Sen moved from Chongqing to Chengdu, he had always longed for the excitement of the

Chengdu art world. Most of He Sen’s important paintings were done after this year, he realized that

his art was moving towards a greater clarity, he needed a new environment and more opportunities.

After 2001, women with blinded eyes began to have clear eyes. Based on previous experiments

He Sen began to leave subtle hints of sadness on his subjects’ faces and bodies – with the abrupt

brushstrokes used to accomplish this effect he seems to want to say that even the most bright and

shining image or form can be hurt or be a sham. There is no fundamental difference with the artist’s

previous expressionist attitude, he has only changed his conduit of expression. In the years following,

he has fully expressed the life and youth that he understood, all of which were related to time, related

to the constant renewed understanding and probing of one’s existence. Even though critics have

covered up these questions with post-modern vocabularies, the works of the artist still reveal these

things.

Women and the world in which we live seem rather similar in appearance, to put it in simple

words, girls nowadays are prettier than before, and they seem to get even more beautiful.

And the actual society we live in is also more beautiful, architecture and streets are also more

beautiful. But our hearts and spirits are far less fulfilled than in the past, and the current

beauty and progress is entirely illusion, in fact it is only an empty shell, an appearance

covering a void; idealism is gradually diminishing in actual life, and this society is becoming

very realistic and cool.

(My work is to get to know others and knowing myself through art – interview with He Sen)

This is the kind of melancholy that can often be seen among southwestern artists; we can see the

same contemporary tragedy in works by Zhang Xiaogang, Mao Xuhui, Zhao Nengzhi, Xin Haizhou,

Zhang Xiaotao, Xie Nanxing and others. The time is “beautiful”, but this “beauty” is precisely the

symbol of degeneration and problems.

Just as a few years earlier He Sen had hopefully moved from Chongqing to Chengdu, in 2003 he

moved to Beijing. And in the capital the artist attained the success he had long been hoping for. In

the last few years, he has spent a lot of time on this degenerate “beauty”, until 2005 when he restarted

his reflections on art.

One’s emotional wisdom and sensibility is related to one’s experiences and knowledge learning.

In the period of mesmerizing with “beauty of decay”, He Sen was interested in a state of spiritual

“descent”. In order to carry on this state, he had to provide evidence from his spiritual needs and

artistic practice. For He Sen, the previous “beauty of decay” appropriates into representations of the

possibilities of photography. It fulfilled the inevitable receding psyche of the 1990s – a psychological

state that was continuously affected by chaotic social life and artistic trends (for example, cynical

realism). After 2000, those young artists born in the 1970s began to suggest a trend-resisting

the original painting, and to imagine those indifferent and noble integrity. Of course, the artist’s

unsettled attitude remains concealed on the surface of the artwork. Although the audience may

of the lack of common knowledge of traditional Chinese cultural elements in Western audience, if

He Sen’s work were to be exhibited in today’s globalized context, what possibilities would it bring?

He Sen firmly believes that it is not the theme of the works but rather the language independent of

theme and content that is critically at play. In his words, “The images are essentially homogenous,

a homogeneity found in the languages you found on canvas. And the cultural implications are only

complimentary to this language.” (Reality and Image - Conversation with He Sen, interviewed

by He Guiyan). Of course, this transition is faced with challenges. In fact, this challenge was

also confronted collectively amongst other contemporary Chinese artists. A challenge involves

fundamental changes in the artists’ views on history. In the artistic field, what were the reasons for

our reception of knowledge and what made knowledge become our hindrance? How should we

perceive our experiences from the last few decades? How should artistic standard be established for

today and the future? He Sen realized the urgency of this issue, which propelled him to make the

following claim,

The current Chinese reception of art education are unaware on the impact on itself from

western art history education system, what is “beauty”, what is not? Zhang Xiaogang visited

the Van Gogh Museum and was shocked that, Van Gogh was a Caucasian? The global

characteristic of art presents many specific issues, for instance, the Chinese do not share the

anatomic structure we have learned in sketching, because our faces are flatter. Such details

applied by the dilettantes in art when practicing portraitures, they subconsciously enforce

such anatomic structures, forehead, cheekbones, nose ridge, brow bones, orbicular muscles

and chewing muscles… or even we could see the shoulder blades on Mao Zedong’s back under

his thick coat among many of his landmark statues in many city centers, because they are

“scientific”, “ dimensional” and “beautiful”.

(Contradictory Wandering, He Sen, 2011)

Such ideology is certainly not nouveau, however, in the last decade or so, another way of looking

at the world have been largely overlooked. He was not concerned with the tendencies of judgments

exercised in contemporary art, despite scattered acceptance of his transition around 2006. He Sen

insisted on his own understanding and senses, he believed in his rational instincts from years of

reading, listening and experiments; he believed in his ability to focus on the most essential elements

in judging art; he believed that a point and a detail can both reflect what people wish to see. The

unraveling of the artistic structure may be extensive, perhaps we only need a spectacular moment

in the crevice of such extensive structure. It was the way in which He Sen saw these issues made

him increasing uninterested in the entirety and structure of art. Setting out on one detail or even a

fragmented image, he magnified it into an independent realm of its own. Language is definitely the

natural center of focus for an artist. Art critic Hang Chunxiao analyzed the construction of He Sen’s

artistic language as such,

Previous experience of interpreting traditional Chinese painting had suddenly lost referential

subject due to the change in conditions of its system. Thus an absurd phenomenon emerged,

those presumptuous image experiences suddenly became utterly unfamiliar, that became a

new visual subject – enabling interpreting reference of Chinese painting to be re-divided

into the “perceivable visuals” and the “ knowledgeable content”. Especially, the latter is no

longer a logically outcome of the former, but requires the assistance of recalling on the “mother

ship” to reconstruct a new channel. It is an uncomfortable viewing experience because,

forcibly changes your viewing habits, and informs you that your previous viewing habits have

been rather simplistic – to a point that it can be completed without the necessity of a visual

experience.

(Disconnect Between the Seen and Known – He Sen’s “Visual Attitude”)

Former interpretation references in fact plays a role in one’s knowledge and senses where

“hypothesizing” may not necessarily be a strategy, in the contrary, the cultural elements that may

not effect psychological response urges to be presented through new artistic language, because they

cannot be fully concealed. This is the key to artistic phenomenon like He Sen’s practice: allowing

possibilities of contemporary art to become the channel in which historical psyche saturates, then

bursts fully, completely with vital energy.

In 2005, He Sen visited the Centre de Pompidou, where dazzling western art and its environment

reminded him of the future of his own artistic practice. He began to believe that Western standard

will not be the outcome for Chinese art, and Chinese contemporary art had to find its own cultural

logic in order to move forward and establish its own values – a value that cannot be granted from the

standard of occidental-centrism. (Annals)

Nevertheless, He Sen persevered in his new painting experiments. In 2007, He Sen had unveiled

works of traditional images in the former Universal Studio art space in a solo exhibition, Now

and Then. Thereafter, he participated in exhibitions in London in 2010, and at the San Francisco

Asian Art Museum in 2011, as well as, the Chengdu Biennale, Pure Views. In fact, seeking spiritual

resources from traditional culture has become a new direction in the paintings of the new century.

We have seen the artists’ sensible gaze shifting towards historical origins in Zhou Chunya’s peach

blossoms, Zeng Fanzhi’s landscape paintings etc. At the same time, the viewers have also been

exposed to similar directions from works by a younger generation of artists (such as works by Cao

Jingping, Yang Xun and Shen Na). Many artists have realized a transcendental quality from the

artworks of the ancients, a path that may contrast poignantly with cultural traditions deeply rooted

in western art. In today’s globalized network of information, the search of true individuality and

uniqueness has again become the new goal for many artists - a goal that requires one’s concept to

accord with sensual experiences, where the contemporary should be bridged with the historical.

In the last three decades of searching for new art since the 1980s to our present understanding on

conceptualism, other than one’s own freedom of enlightenment, everything else can be rebutted.

For He Sen, significant achievements have been made in his experiments in new oil painting who,

successfully infused knowledge and experience into a new artistic era. In this era, language continues

to be the artist’s focus, however, the quality and taste are becoming elements necessary in formulating

new art history and the standard for contemporary art – if concepts are not accorded with quality,

then it will not be worth mentioning.

Obviously, among He Sen’s works of different periods, we can sense the artist’s early loneliness and

his present melancholy. A person spends his early life pursuing something, but when he achieves what

he has pursued, he feels new losses: naïve, beautiful and eternal. Ma Yuan’s son Ma Lin has a painting

titled Holding a Candle Roaming at Night, the ambiance of this image is both elegant and classy.

At night, candlelight illuminating a garden in full blossom as if it’s day, a person sitting in its midst;

it is difficult to determine whether this person is enjoying reclusion or feeling a melancholy longing.

We know that early 1279 was the last moment of the Song dynasty, before the Mongols invaded

Hangzhou the literati all escaped to become recluses, and the quiet in each of their gardens came to

an end – these little paintings by Ma Lin and other artists without recorded names of the Southern

Song are records of the complexity of their mindset. Similar emotional states might also appear in

today’s works, in a period of drastic transition, perhaps symbolic melancholy could better remind us

of the existing issues. He Sen and other artists have already realized the importance of sympathizing

with history, and this is also the crucial characteristic of new art.