Foreword  

Shi Jing says “art and wisdom is a synonym”. In other words, Shi Jing’s art is the offspring of his wisdom.  

I came to know Shi Jing through the strong recommendation of Mao Xuhui, the famous Chinese contemporary artist.  

Born and brought up in Yunnan, Shi Jing now lives in Beijing. Like many other artists originating from Yunnan, their teachers or predescessors such as Mao Xuhui, Tang Zhigang, Ye Yongqing, Pan Dehai, Li Ji, Zeng Hao, Zhang Xiaogang, and Luan Xiaojie are all important figures in contemporary Chinese art. The younger artists studying and grwoing up in such an artistic environment will certainly benefit from the enlightment from their predesscessors; more importanly, they are able to become benefit from the legacies of their predecessors and create soemthing unique.  

Shi Jing’s work in this exhibition at OV includes his paintings and installation works.  

His paintings are derived from his concept of “visual feeling”, which requires touching by vision. In fact, visual feeling is a phrase which simplifies the process from vision to thinking. Normally, we use our eyes to see and perceive, whilst feeling by eyes enhances the feeling of the prcess from vision to thinking. Shi Jing gave a detailed explanation in an interview:  

“Appreciating a beautiful female body starts from her hands to her shoulder, and then instincitviely to her bossom, hip and legs, and finally back to own wine glass. This process may be long or short and what I depict through my brushwork is the changes of the viewers’ mental and physical conditions during this process.”  

Standing before Shi Jing’s paintigns, the audience can only see hazy images, but following the changes in position, the changing light unfurls details of the hidden images.  The final images perceived by the audience also depends on the position of the audience and the lighting conditions. Shi Jing uses a technique similar to anatomy to construct the image; it enables the audience to feel with their vision every layer of paint hidden under the surface and to explore the pretense and obsolete area in the paintigns. The audience’s involvement in this process releases and fulfils their final perception to the image. This is the stype of expression unique to Shi Jing’s art, which, undoubtedly, injects fresh blood into Chinese contemporary art centered on conceptual art and social themes. Mr. E. L. Smith, the famous international art critic, gave such coment on Shi Jing’s works at the opening exhibtion of Oriental Vista Art Collections this Feburary: “Shi Jing may be the most radical and most  creative artist in contemprary Chinese art field for the time being”. 

In addition to paintings, Shi Jing has various conceptual projects on installion works; completed projects include  “Musical Vines - News from Shanghai” and “Organ”. These installation works are also the extension to his “visual feeling” concept. Confined by the exhibition space, the concept of using water pipes to transmit and amplify the sound of domestic running water has to be replaced by visually impressionistic water pipes made from wax , but this can still stimulate the audience’s perception and feeling. It can be said that Shi Jing’s installation works are the tools strengthening the audience’s invovlement in his perception of the subjects.  

I hope the audience can perceive Shi Jing’s art via their eyes or souls in this exhibition.