From far away, the imposing darkness of Hu Liu’s works is mesmerizing. You feel you’re standing before a jet-black wall: everywhere your eyes reach is somber and grave.
远
远远看胡柳的作品，你很容易为那样铺天盖地的黑色而吸引，就好像迎面一座黑墙，目力所及，皆是肃穆。
But this Beijing artist says her works aren’t black, they’re xuán. The word can mean “dark” or “mysterious,” and it evokes the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi. “Xuán is remote, and it also means ‘hidden,'” she explains. She then quotes from the Dao De Jing: “‘Darkness upon darkness: the gateway to wonders.'”
但胡柳说，这不是黑，而是“玄”。玄，有老庄哲学的意味，“老子说，玄而又玄，众妙之门。‘玄’，幽远也。又有‘隐’的意思。”
In this world drawn in xuán, Hu hides her works in the folds of time, but they reveal themselves with the changing light. “This isn’t a world that any color can depict,” she says.
而在“玄”所描绘的世界里，胡柳仿佛就让作品藏身于时光之中，随着时间和光线的变化在隐中自显，“这不是任何一种颜色可以囊括的世界。”她说。
Xuán is not black—or rather, it’s not only black.
By design, elements on Hu’s canvases seem to appear and disappear. The entire surface is drawn stroke by stroke in pencil—every plant, every petal, every seascape—line by line, overlapping endlessly. The dense streaks of graphite call you closer, beckoning your eyes to trace the light and shadows, to move point by point and envision its compositional structure. Only when you’re close enough can you perceive the visual intricacy you expect to find in a painting.
Millions upon millions of pencil strokes: to outside observers, this creative process looks almost like a work of religious devotion. For Hu, a drawing isn’t finished just because it looks finished—it often stretches out even more boundlessly. “It’s like crossing the river to the farther shore: it’s hard to judge how long it will take. You have to discover whether the water is shallow or deep, warm or cold.”
近
玄不是黑，或者说，绝不仅仅是黑。
这似乎是胡柳故意设计的一场“显与隐”的游戏，它邀请你一步步向前，邀请你的眼睛跟随光影，一点一点移，再试图在脑海中构建它的模样——原来这一面颜色，全都是用铅笔一笔一笔绘成，一株植物，一枚花瓣，一片海，所有的笔触层层交叠，未知止尽。你必须足够接近才能构建出一幅画想象中应有的视觉图像。
千万次铅笔的涂抹，这种创作的过程在旁人看来，几近修道。对胡柳而言，作品亦非在看似结束的时候就结束了，而开始更为绵延不绝，“更像是渡河至彼岸，所需时间很难度量，水深水浅冷暖自知”。
Staring at Hu’s works, you feel you’re plunging into the black depths of the canvas, subject to the swell and ripple of every stroke. When you’re overwhelmed and look up again, wholeness and clarity appear. Only then do you see why Hu calls this color xuán: the picture is still jet black, but all of the details flash through your mind, and what you see becomes what you think.
“If I’m trying to convey something, the only way to see it is to observe the work up close, face to face. The viewer has eyes, the viewer doesn’t need answers, the viewer can discover them on her own,” she says. “Beckett wrote, ‘The artistic tendency is not expansive, but a contraction, and art is the apotheosis of solitude.’ To me, that rings true.”
远
极尽细致地观看，就像一个猛子扎进胡柳笔下的黑色浪潮里去，体验每一笔的波澜。等某一刻疲惫了，再一抬头，那种全面和了然就出现了。这时候，方才大抵明白为什么胡柳把它叫做“玄”——画面还是玄黑一片，然而所有的细节都映入内心，所见即所思。
“如果说我试图在传达什么，那么和作品面对面靠近作品本身，观看是唯一的途径。观众有自己的眼睛，观众不需要答案，观众自己会去发现。”胡柳说：“‘艺术的倾向不是外露，而是一种收缩。艺术是孤独的入圣加冕。’这是贝克特的话，我非常有同感。”
Perhaps the real language of an artist is their work. Only when standing before a work of art can a viewer find resonance or contact with its creator. “Through observation, a work of art allows us to feel the intangible,” Hu says. “The most powerful way to be heard isn’t to babble incessantly but to be silent. It’s much more effective than any words.”
To keep up to date with upcoming exhibitions or works from Hu Liu, visit her ShanghART Gallery page.
或许对创作者而言，真正的语言永远是作品，人们只有直面作品，才能与艺术家产生交流和共鸣。“绘画，通过观看这一途径使我们触及不可见，它的方式比一切话语都更加有效得多。”毕竟，胡柳说，“最有效的发声不是滔滔不绝而是沉默，”
想持续关注胡柳的展览和作品信息，可点击浏览香格纳画廊官网。
