“Ink Blots”
(Call number: J218.7-39/7)
The “Ink Blots” album is a publication compiled from the preliminary design drawing manuscripts of the 4K digital virtual stop-motion opera animation “New Sanchakou” created by Fan Beilu in 2020. It includes the paintings and design works created by the author, which contains about 200 drawings. The title of the album is “Ink” and “Blot”. “Ink” represents the infinite possibilities of the freedom of the pen, which gives the opera characters the innovation and the texture of the paper medium; while “Blot” represents the author’s repeated thinking and continuous thinking during creation. The “momojiji” creative taste of the polished works makes the paintings contain traces of the charm of traditional opera characters, as well as the innovative spirit of oriental aesthetics learned from the improvisation of artistic creation. In these works, the author used traditional Chinese ink painting techniques to improvise and vividly interpret the “movements” of the characters, condensing the routines and dynamics of opera performances into them, and guiding the viewers to subjectively and actively associate with the plots starting from a single original painting manuscript. The possibility of the development of external plots transforms the action of “viewing” from one-way appreciation in the traditional sense into two-way communication. The author hopes to use this to inspire more art practitioners and students from professional colleges to actively explore the ideographic space of traditional artistic and cultural symbols under the perspective of new technologies in their creative practice, create cultural symbols rich in national connotations, and realize contemporary oriental aesthetics and national Aesthetic reinvention.
“Faces in Ink”
(Call number: J222.7/686)
The album “Faces in Ink” is the second volume of the trilogy of Fan Beilu’s “Ink” series. It contains more than 200 ink paintings created by the author since 2020. Compared with “Ink Blots”, “Faces in Ink” focuses more on the description of the characters’ faces. As a visual symbol, the face is an important component of individual recognition. In real life, it interacts with the external environment and information, showing an individual’s immediate response. Therefore, it is lively and flexible and full of interpretation space. In “Faces in Ink”, the author uses fragmented time to consciously capture and record the various faces around him, and attempts to perceive their inner feelings, emotions, dilemmas and appeals through these moments. The media of ink and pen used in the creation of works are often readily available. The paper includes frame lining paper, envelopes and even napkins. The water used to dissolve the dry ink is sometimes a cup of tea at hand. This kind of improvisational creation is the concept that the author has been working hard to practice in recent years. The author hopes to use “Faces in Ink” to convey to readers a desire to maintain a keen sense of life in the present, just like its interesting and close-to-life interpretation: I hope that contemporary creators, whether through pen and ink, words, images or other, to truly walk, take care of, feel, and record, create works that are rooted in life, highlight the mechanism of life, and convey the unpretentious but shining truth, goodness, and beauty in the world.
About the Author
Sun Lijun, contemporary artist, vice president of Beijing Film Academy, professor, and doctoral supervisor. Fanbeilu is his pen name, and the three characters represent three artists respectively. “Fan” means Van Gogh, “bei” means Xu Beihong, and “Lu” means Lu Xun. These three great figures had a huge influence on Fanbeilu when he was a boy. artist. Fan Beilu hopes to absorb their artistic spirit and create works that are thoughtful, artistic and ornamental.
