很长时间以来，女艺术家符曦一直以人体作为创作的母体与媒介，并以“女性视角”较好地强调了一系列与性别、身份以及生存状态有关的当代文化问题。在前期，也就是参加“居住在成都”当代油画展的前后，她在创作时更多是用较为装饰的风格与外在的符号元素来突出现代女性在商品化社会中的屈从地位。比如在名为《妆扮》的作品中，她就尽力描绘了一个女人用塑胶乳房装备自己的故事，为的是突显一些女人迎合男人审美标准的心理状态。类似情况在《浴室》与《对镜》中也有所体现。相对而言，她近期的作品在创作方法上已经发生了重大变化，其具体表现为：她再也不是依靠外在的叙事因素与特定的意义背景去构思一个画面，而是依靠特定的艺术语言来突出特定的观念，于是，她的近作也很好地将语言与观念融合为了一体。
如果依靠艺术史所提供的线索来看，我们有充分的理由认为，符曦的近作或多或少是继承了艺术大师鲁本斯与弗洛依德的艺术传统。那就是运用一种“肿胀”式的艺术语言对人体进行了极其夸张的表现。不过，为了更容易指向具体的社会问题，进而涉及当下人的实际精神状态，符曦并没有像鲁本斯与弗洛依德那样，蓄意让画中的主人翁与具体的故事或场景挂钩，而是常常在虚拟或空白的背景上加以展开，这当然就给观众以更大的想象空间。
我们知道，在古今中外的多种文化中，女性大多处于屈从与受支配的地位，并成了男性的欲望对象与发泄对象。也正是由于“男权主义”的观念绝对地支配着社会发展史与艺术史，所以，女性总是以柔美、优雅、秀丽的面貌出现在形形色色的艺术作品中。实际上，在世界各地出现的 “现代选美”的活动也不过是把传统的审美观推向了极致，其目的还是为了维持男性观看的视角霸权，它暗含着社会的权利和社会不平等的巨大差异性。而符曦的近作恰好是对传统观念的有力颠覆。具体地说，她在追求视觉化、生物化的基本前提下，以一种强调体量感与力度感的话语方式大胆地提出了对“男权中心”的抵抗与批判，所谓女性“三围”的传统标准也被她弃之不顾。毫无疑问，这是对传统优雅美学的果敢挑战，其结果是导致我们对女人体产生了一种新的观看方式和新的思考维度。站在传统的角度，人们会感觉符曦的近作很不美、很另类，但站在新的角度，人们则会发现：符曦不仅在画中用丰满而带桃红色的肉感生动地突出了生命的本能、欲望与巨大活力，还用刺人眼帘的伤痕与特殊的肢体语言很好突出了女人受伤害的状态与面对现实的无奈。从中，我们可以明显体会到一种深刻的压抑感或歇斯底里的心理挣扎。
也正是循着以上的思路看问题，我认为，符曦近作中出现的男人体在很大程度上乃是她画女人体以后的自然延续。在这一系列作品中，她一方面通过对具体动态、肌肉、血管、经络与呼吸感的表现来突出了人的自然性、生物性与视觉性特点，另一方面又用那些突显在肌肉上的道道伤痕强调了生存个体在现实中所遭受到的伤害。虽然艺术家符曦并没有用讲故事的传统方式说明导致这些伤痕产生的具体原因，但如果我们从商业社会、工业社会的大背景上来加以理解时，就会给予想象性的补充。我同意一些艺术界人士的看法，即符曦的画带有很强的象征性，它们深刻地揭示了人类在当下社会中所面临的共性问题：它有时象征着欲望与现实的矛盾；有时象征着理性与社会的断裂，有时又象征着个体内趋力与外在规范的冲击……所以，她的近作不光在形式上，也在内含上直指观众的心灵，具有极大的张力与震撼性。在不久前的一次通话中，符曦告诉我，她今后还会用相同的办法画些老人与小孩。对她来说，究竟是画男人还是画女人，画老人还是画小孩并不重要，重要的是突出生命本身的天然活力与它所受到的外在伤害，而这与她以前只是强调表现女性的生存状态是有所不同的，这也意味着符曦已经由一个女权主义者转化为一个具有更大胸怀的现代人本主义者。对此，我深表赞同。
2007年5月18日于深圳美术馆
Challenging Graceful Esthetics
----Analysis Fu Xi’s latest works
Lu Hong
For a long time, human body is always the Parent substance and Medium of female artist Fu Xi. And her works emphasizes on modern culture problem related with gender, identity and existing state preferably. In the early days, around when she joined the modern oil painting exhibition named “living in Chengdu”, she gives prominence to modern women’s yielding position living in the commercial society by using ornamental style and exterior specofic element when creating. Such as “Dressed Up”, she portrays a woman who uses plastic breast to dress up herself to make a psychological state that a woman try her best to suit a man’s taste stand out. That meaning shows in “Bathroom” and “In the Mirror” as well.
Relatively speaking, her latest works has changed a lot on creating, which show that she does not concept a frame depending on exterior narrative element and specific background any more, but depending on specific artistic language to make her specific ideas stand out. Then, she combines the language and ideas together perfectly in her latest works.
If it is in the view of artistic history, we are sure that Fu Xi’s latest works carry on the Rubense and Florida’s artistic tradition more or less, which overstates body performance by a swelling art language. But in order to go right to the specific society problem, and further to the spiritual pulse of modern people, Fu Xi does not deliberate to make the master of the painting and the specific story link together like Rubense and Florida, and her works always spread out with a virtual or blank background, which creates a larger imaginary space for audience.
As we know, women are always in a swelling state and as an object for man to vent at all times and in all lands. Because male chauvinism dominates the society phylogeny and artistic history absolutely, woman in the works are always delicate, pretty and elegant. Actually, beauty contest in the world is merely to push the traditional taste to the superlative, and its purpose is still to keep man’s visual hegemony which implies the great difference of society power and inequality. And Fu Xi’s latest works subverts the traditional ideas powerfully. Concretely speaking, on the premise of pursuing visualization and biologicalization, she is fighting with the male chauvinism and criticizing it as well fearlessly in powerful and weighting language, and abandons the women’s so-called vital statistics completely. It is no doubt that this challenges traditional elegant aesthetics, and the result generates a brad-new viewing and thinking about women for us. At the traditional angle, people’s feeling about Fu Xi’s works is un- appreciatory and different, but at a brand-new angle, people find that Fu Xi’s works makes vital instinct, desires and powerful activity stand out by the plump and peach blow flesh, and also stand out the women’s hurt and state of nothing to do in front of the reality. Amongst these, we can feel a deep depression or hysteria psychological fighting obviously.
From the above thread, I think male body in Fu Xi’s works is the natural spread of her female body painting largely. In this series works, she stands out the people’s naturalization, biologicalization and visualization by concrete movement, muscle, vein, meridian and breathing things on one side, and on the other emphasizes on hurt of existing body in the reality through the scars on the muscle. Although she does not tell the reasons of the scars by the traditional method of story, we can get imaginary supplement if the commercial society and industrial society help us to understand it. Some artists think that Fu Xi’s works symbols a lot, so and I, which shows the common problems we met in the modern society: Sometimes it symbols the contradictory of desires and reality; sometimes means the broken relations of senses and society; sometimes stand out the shock of interior trend and exterior standard, etc. So her latest work has a great tension and shock which goes right to audience’s heart not only in the form, but also in the meaning. Fu Xi told me that she would draw the olds and the children with the same methods from our latest conversation. It is not important for her to draw man or women, the olds or the children, but making the vital energy naturally and their exterior hurt stand out is more important, which is different from her early works emphasis on women’s living state. And this means Fu Xi has transformed from a feminist to a modern humanist with great breadth of mind which I go along with completely.
At Shenzhen Art Gallery on 18th May, 2007