Xiaochi Dong — Artisle艺术岛屿

董孝驰｜现代自然
Dong Xiaochi | Modern Nature

Writer: 夏天
Date: 05/20/2024

Keywords: classic chinese painting / nature / essence of the word

董孝驰，生于1993年，硕士毕业于英国皇家艺术学院，现生活工作于伦敦与上海。董孝驰的艺术实践以中国古典绘画为基底，并探索当代绘画的实验逻辑，作品因而具有调和不同美学传统的视觉特征。艺术家从不同尺度的人造景观——古典园林、现代植物园与微型生态缸——中获取灵感，探索不同观念对于自然的模拟、仿造与压缩。董孝驰的创作主要涉及绘画与综合平面作品。通过创作饱含光线、湿度与气氛暗示的画面，艺术家旨在为当代的自然图景赋予形式。

Born in 1993, Dong Xiaochi earned a master's degree from the Royal College of Art in the United Kingdom and currently lives and works in both London and Shanghai. Dong's artistic practice is deeply rooted in classical Chinese painting while also exploring the experimental logic of contemporary art. His works exhibit harmonious visual elements that seamlessly blend various aesthetic traditions.

Drawing inspiration from artificial landscapes of different scales, including traditional Chinese gardens, botanical gardens, and miniature ecosystems, Dong explores diverse concepts related to simulating, imitating, and compressing nature. His creative endeavors primarily encompass painting and mixed-media pieces. By creating images saturated with hints of light, humidity and atmosphere, Dong aims to give form to contemporary images of nature.

展览“丰容”现场，南柯画廊，上海，2023
Exhibition Site, Enrichment, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai, 2023

Rainforest，155x119cm，矿物颜料，墨，宣纸，2018
Rainforest，155x119cm，Mineral Pigment and Ink on Rice Paper，
2018

我将自己缚于这片风景中。

——德里克·贾曼

自然是古典绘画历史的重要主角。作为可见之物的源泉——从高山到流水、从绿野到荒漠——自然通常被理解一个投影，具备着揭秘世界本性的重要意义。面对这一强大的传统，艺术家董孝驰渴望在自己的绘画中发现“现代自然”的面貌——尤其是以慰藉的意识所排布的植物存在而导致的情感多样性。董孝驰的创作起点是观察由自己制作的人造生态缸，它为家养爬虫提供了微型的生态环境。在艺术家制作方形栖息地的时候，猎奇欲与窥视癖逐渐转变为了某种美学观念的好奇。这一最初冲动的结果就是用矿物颜料以及中国工笔技法所创作的水墨作品《Rainforest-secret》（2018）。在这件作品中，董孝驰将绿植视作古典意像的切片，并将其安置在了一个理性、规整的极简布局之中。彼时，艺术家困惑于中国画与科学叙事之间的矛盾。因为，前者描述的是人在自然之中所流露出的谦逊与仪式感，而后者则如监控者与被监控者，强调了人类与环境之间彼此捉弄的危险关系。

I chained myself to this landscape.

— Derek Jarman[1]

Nature is an important protagonist in the history of classical painting. As the source of visible things - from mountains to running water, from green fields to deserts - nature is often understood as a projection, possessing the significance of unveiling the NATURE of the world. In the face of this powerful tradition, artist Dong Xiaochi aspires to discover in his paintings the face of "modern nature" - in particular, the diversity of emotions that result from the presence of plants arranged with a sense of solace. The starting point for Dong's work is the observation of a self-made artificial ecological tank, which provides a miniature ecological environment for domesticated reptiles. As the artist crafts the square habitats, the desire for curiosity and voyeurism gradually transforms into a curiosity about certain aesthetic concepts. The result of this initial impulse is the ink work Rainforest-secret (2018), created with mineral pigments and Chinese brushwork techniques. In this work, Dong regards greenery as slices of classical imagery and places them in a rational, regular, minimalist layout. At the time, the artist was confused by the contradiction between Chinese painting and scientific narrative. While the former depicts the humility and rituals of human beings in the midst of nature, the latter, like the watcher and the watched, emphasises the dangerous relationship between human beings and the environment that play tricks on each other.

[1] Derek Jarman, Modern Nature, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009, p. 77.

2021年，董孝驰前往英国伦敦留学，他常去的邱园（Kew Gardens）似乎给他的困惑提供了暂时性的答案。这座位于伦敦西南郊的巨型生态区的历史可以追溯至1759年，那是英国园林建造的风潮年代。得益于英国皇家学会主席约瑟夫·班克斯（Joseph Banks）的出谋划策，这座帝国时代的植物园也是自然研究的伊甸园。与18世纪的园林一同影响了董孝驰创作的则是这一风景背后的美学。根据学者汤姆·特纳（Tom Turner）的看法，在18世纪的语境中，有三个概念影响着英国的园林的历史。首先是“美”（Beauty）的概念，它被适用于栽培的景观，主要表现为在“前景”中平滑、微妙而平缓的视觉变化。其次则是“崇高”（Sublime），它往往与“宏大、骇人、令人心生敬畏”的风景有关。这两个概念在康德和伯克的哲学著作中得到了充分阐述。最后，第三个概念“风景如画”（Picturesque）则给出截然不同的意境，因为它是一种：“中间媒介式的粗糙、狂野和不规则的美学类型”。[2]在特纳的例子当中，法国画家皮埃尔-约瑟夫·雷杜德（Pierre-Joseph Redoute）的植物绘画成为了介乎“美”与“风景如画”之间的典型代表：它为形式（Form）提供了生机 (vitality)。

In 2021, Dong travelled to London, England, to study, and Kew Gardens, which he frequented, seemed to provide a temporary answer to his perplexity. This giant eco-district on the outskirts of south-west London dates back to 1759, a time when gardening was all the rage in England. Thanks to the brainchild of Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, this imperial-era botanical garden was also an Eden for nature study. Along with the 18th-century gardens, it was the aesthetics of the landscape that influenced Dong’s work. According to Tom Turner, three concepts influenced the history of English gardens in the 18th century context. Firstly, there was the concept of Beauty, which was applied to cultivated landscapes, mainly in the form of smooth, subtle and gentle visual changes in the 'foreground'. The second is the Sublime, which is often associated with landscapes that are "grand, lurid, and awe-inspiring". These two concepts are well articulated in the philosophical writings of Kant and Burke. Finally, the third concept, Picturesque, gives a very different context, as it is a type of "intermediary aesthetics that is rough, wild, and irregular".[2] Among Turner's examples, the botanical paintings of the French painter Pierre-Joseph Redoute typify the intermediary between "beauty" and "picturesque": they provide vitality to the form.

[2] Tom Turner, British Gardens: History, Philosophy and Design, Chinese Version, 2015, p.278; see original British Gardens published by Taylor & Francis, 2013, Chapter 7.

Leave’s Leaves，160x130cm，墨，火山土，亚麻布，2023
Leave’s Leaves，160x130cm，Ink and volcanic clay on linen，2023
花园漫步，91.5x152cm，墨，火山土，木板，2022
Garden Stroll，91.5x152cm，Mixed Media on Wood Panel，2022

与雷杜德一样，在观察植物的乐趣当中，董孝驰发现了自己的工作方法。那就是将栽培、呵护与造景艺术视为“绘画”。如果说，园艺家的工作就是用植物进行作画，那么，艺术家的工作就是用颜料进行“种植”。在新近的作品中，董孝驰会首先使用火山土粉末制作基底，就如同他自己曾制作过的生态缸中的底土一样，为“生命力”铺排“土壤”。其次，他选择在山水画——一种东方的纸上造景——与西方绘画之间调配适当的比例，这主要表现在明暗关系与透视法之中。在邱园里，威廉·钱伯斯（William Chambers）所设计的南京大报恩寺琉璃塔的复制品为艺术家调和“风景”提供了一个有趣的案例。这座英国唯一的中式皇家宝塔在当时挑战了审美惯例的固守性。在《Would Bamboo Bloom》（2023）中，艺术家选择以“竹子”作为母题，但却大胆地将现代主义中的孤独者形象隐没在密密排布的竹林之中。显然，对于董孝驰而言，他以“自然”为对象的绘画是并非是为这一概念建立一个固定对应的观念，实际上，与“绘画”一样，两者都是一个永不休止的过程。

Like Redouard, Dong Xiaochi has discovered his own way of working through the joy of observing plants. That is to consider the art of cultivation, care and landscaping as "painting". If a horticulturist's job is to paint with plants, an artist's job is to "plant" with paint. In his recent works, Dong firstly uses volcanic soil powder to make a base, just like the subsoil in the ecological tanks he once made, to prepare the "soil" for the "life force". Secondly, he chose to mix the right proportions between landscape painting - an oriental form of aquascape on paper - and Western painting, mainly in terms of light and dark relationships and perspective. At Kew, William Chambers' replica of the glazed pagoda at the Dabao’en Temple in Nanjing provides an interesting example of the artist's reconciliation of 'landscape'. The only Chinese royal pagoda in Britain at the time challenged the rigidity of aesthetic conventions. In Would Bamboo Bloom (2023), the artist chooses to use "bamboo" as his motif, but boldly submerges the modernist figure of the loner in a dense forest of bamboo. Obviously, for Dong, his paintings that take "nature" as an object are not meant to establish a fixed counterpart to this concept; in fact, like "painting," both are a never-ending process.

Would Bamboo Bloom，墨，火山土粉末亚麻布，130 x 160cm，2022（图右）
Would Bamboo Bloom, Ink and volcanic clay on linen，130 x 160cm，2022（Right）
It is just Water，墨，火山土，木板，61 x 92cm，2022（图左）
It is just water, Ink and volcanic clay on wood panel，61 x 92cm，2022（Left）

在董孝驰看来，与绘画一样，园林所引发的激情是永恒人性的组成部分。只要还有一点点机会，艺术家都渴望在两者当中保留其当代的魅力。董孝驰的另一个观摩对象是德里克·贾曼（Derek Jarman）。这位来自英国的导演、艺术家、园艺家、作家在自己的私人日记《现代自然》中用诗意的口吻描述了自己在英国肯特郡海岸邓杰内斯（Dungeness）的花园。这座无边际的花园——贾曼曾说，他的园林的边界是地平线——建成于他生命的尾声，如今已经成为了英国当代园林的朝圣地。对于董孝驰而言，贾曼在日记中的描述——“巨大的玫瑰花架如一场场失控的狂欢。”[3]——同样也可以被视作是一种绘画效果的转译。董孝驰接受过完整的中国画训练，他的作品在“美”与“风景如画”之间袒露自己的生命经验。每一张以植物（包含自己的宠物）为灵感的绘画都在以自然造型激发出人们关于湿度、色泽与气味的想象，即便乍一看，它们的色调更接近于中国画所晕染柔性视觉。

For Dong, like painting, the passion aroused by gardens is an integral part of eternal humanity. Given the slightest chance, the artist aspires to preserve the contemporary glamour of both. Another of Dong's subjects is Derek Jarman. The British director, artist, gardener and writer describes his garden in Dungeness, on the Kent coast, in poetic terms in his personal diary, Modern Nature. Built at the end of his life, this borderless garden, Jarman once said that the boundary of his garden was the horizon, has become a place of pilgrimage for contemporary gardens in England. For Dong, Jarman's description in his diary - "Huge rose pergolas run riot."[1] -- can likewise be seen as a translation of a pictorial effect. Fully trained in Chinese painting, Dong’s works reveal his own life experience between "beauty" and "picturesque". Each of the paintings inspired by plants (including his own pets) evokes in their natural forms an imaginative sense of humidity, color and smell, even if at first glance their tones are closer to the softness of vision that is the hallmark of Chinese painting.

[3] Derek Jarman, Derek Jarman’s Garden, with photographs by Howard Sooley, London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1995, p.134.

秋刀鱼秋海棠，火山土，色粉，墨，木板，H60.1 x W75cm，2023
Begonia Amphioxus, Ink, pastel and volcanic clay on wood panel，H60.1 x W75cm，2023
滇越金线兰，火山土，色粉，墨，木板，H28 x W45cm，2023
Anoectochilus Chapaensis, Ink, pastel and volcanic clay on wood panel，H28 x W45cm，2023
塞兹摩尔秋海棠，火山土，色粉，墨，木板，H38 x W21.5cm，2023
Begonia Sizemoreae, Volcanic clay, pastel and ink on wood panel，H38 x W21.5cm,2023

Rainforest-secret，矿物颜料，亚麻布，墨，130 x 160cm，2023
Rainforest-secret，Volcanica clay，linen，ink，130 x 160cm，2023

董孝驰所迷恋的贾曼式的“现代自然”有着复杂的线索，它是将园林、人造景观、枝叶、浪漫主义与东方性融为一体的新实体。譬如，在作品“A Gentle Zephyr along the English Channel”（2023）中，艺术家将贾曼花园里的海风与涟漪并置，它代表了年轻艺术家对于身份意识与情感表达的景观式的想象，也是一种对于当代“风景如画”概念的重新诠释。虽然，他的作品数量与类型还并不十分庞大，然而，这些象征着自然造物的作品却有着真挚与清晰的趣味倾向。

Dong Xiaochi's fascination with the Jarmanesque "modern nature" has complex threads, a new entity that combines gardens, man-made landscapes, foliage, Romanticism, and Orientalism. For example, in A Gentle Zephyr along the English Channel (2023), the artist juxtaposes the sea breeze and ripples in Jarman's garden, which represents the young artist's landscape-like imagination of identity and emotional expression, as well as a reinterpretation of the contemporary concept of "picturesque". Although the outputs of his works are not very large, these works, which symbolise the natural creation, have a sincere and clear tendency of interest.