by Curator Mr. JianYong Yang

We use the title “A Walk in Life – our STORY” to talk about us and our story. Here, the artist tried to convey her views and the underlying process of thinking, unrestricted by boundaries set by conventional standards of beauty, philosophy, or rationales, and directly connected to the origins of thoughts.

Artist Irene’s works reveal her feminine sensitivity when she examined her inner world, confronting her desires and wants. Her works also show her concerns for human race’s collective histories and lives from a maternal perspective. These are works of her contemplating efforts in the past two years. During this period, she deep dived into her inner self, pondered, wondered, questioned, concerned, and suffered. Looking back, it must certainly all be worthwhile. Her choices of expressions already allowed the artist to reach her own nirvana, both internally and externally.

In 2019, Irene had her oil painting solo exhibition titled “A Walk in the Bamboos” at the Shanghai Hongqiao Contemporary Museum. “A Walk in the Bamboos” was where the artist used bamboos as a medium to express her awe for nature. “A Walk in Life – our STORY,” on the other hand, focuses on our soul and our mind as pathways, from internal to external, to explore the fundamental purposes and meanings of life and our relationship with nature.

Artist Irene’s vision is very similar to the rationale behind the surrealist movement in the last Century: Salvador Dali presenting his dreams via realism; Rene Magritte depicting ordinary objects in extraordinary context. She tends to fold multiple layers of time into one visual space, showing a different type of dimensional context. In the “We Love Apples – Eve” series, the artist depicts women with various postures, gestures, and emotions. There is another focal point in this series of work - the “apple.” The religious implication and context of the apples are evident. When images of nude women and apples are put together, it is easy to associate them with religious symbolisms, especially with Eden’s Garden. This time, the artist chose these imageries as paths to her thoughts, using apples as visual symbols to complete her mindful exploration.

During the lunar new year holiday, I went to the artist’s studio. There stood her six-meter-wide oil painting in the middle of her first-floor space. She seemed to have tried to pour all her concerns and thoughts onto her work. In fact, when one stands in front of the huge piece of visual work, the viewers would for sure immerse into it. Looking at the images such as tsunami, forest fires, covid viruses, one can see how the artist did not hide any of these challenges the world had faced. Perhaps it is precisely this frankness that one feels a deeper shocking connection.

“A Walk in Life – our STORY” presents the artist’s thoughts, breaking the barrier between the artist’s inner world and her outside world, revealing the unfamiliarity within reality. Regarding life, equality is a basic human understanding in our modern civilized world. Yet, still seeing so many species going extinct is distressful. Nevertheless, when faced with life’s frailty, artist Irene used brushwork styled from romanticism to display the animals that are facing extinction. When talking about one of her paintings, she explained, “if we don’t put in efforts to make a difference today, these animals I painted are going to disappear within the next 50 years.” Confronting such cruel reality, the artist surprisingly used warm colors to offset the bleak future. Interestingly, Irene also painted a human face lit by fire in the middle of the painting, showing warmth and hope. This is the bottom line of a female artist.

She belongs to the East.

《生命的漫步》畫展的前言/文策展人楊建勇先生

今天，我們以《生命的漫步》為題，講述我們和我們的故事。在這里，藝術家試圖通過個人的表達呈現自己的觀念以及觀念背後的思索，這樣的思索不限於哲學或審美，不受理性約束而直源於思想。作為一個女性藝術家，張佩瑤小姐以女性的細膩潛入內心，用內省的方式直視欲望。另一方面，藝術家的母愛天性，讓她站在母親的視角，審視過往，關注生命，這便是藝術家在過去的二年中所作的努力。其間雖然歷經思索、仿徨、煩悶與痛苦，今天看來肯定是值得的，這樣的表達讓藝術家完成了自身的涅槃，無論是向內還是對外。

2019 年，張佩瑤小姐在上海虹橋當代美術館舉辦了《竹林漫步》個人畫展，《竹林漫步》以竹為媒介，敘述藝術家對自然的感悟。《生命的漫步》則是以心靈為路徑，由內而外地探索生命的本意以及與自然的關系。

藝術家張佩瑤小姐的視覺與上世紀超現實主義運動的邏輯很接近; 達利通過現實主義手法呈現夢境，瑪克里特將日常轉化為神秘，張佩瑤小姐的繪畫更多的是將時空折疊，展示現實的另一重境界。在“我們愛蘋果一夏娃” 系列中，藝術家描繪生活中女性的各種姿態，譬如仰臥，譬如沈溺，當然，也有掙扎。這組作品的另一個主角是“蘋果”，一個完整的蘋果其宗教意義是非常明顯的。當裸女與蘋果在一起的時候，最容易讓人產生的聯想是宗教，是伊甸園。這一次，藝術家卻將其作為思索的路徑，以蘋果作為視覺符號來完成個人的思考。

春節期間，去了藝術家工作室，一樓客廳斜放著 6 米長的油畫作品。在這幅作品中，她似乎想將自己的擔憂與思考都呈現出來。確實，站在這個超大尺幅的視覺前，無論創作者，還是閱讀者，都會情不自禁深陷其中間; 那些海嘯，那些森林大火以及影響深遠的全球新冠，在藝術家的筆觸下毫無遮掩地呈現著。也許，正因為直白，才讓我們有了更深層次的震撼。

《生命的漫步》呈現了藝術家的思索，打破了藝術家內心與外部世界之間的壁壘，揭示出現實故有的面容。關於生命，生命的平等是現代人類最基本的共識。眾多已消失的動物讓人痛心。面對生命的脆弱，藝術家卻以浪漫主義的筆觸描繪瀕危動物，據藝術家介紹: 大概率上這些動物將在 50 年內消亡，如果我們不努力的話。面對這樣一個殘酷的現實，藝術家出乎意料地以溫馨的色彩來消解。並且在畫面中間創作了人類的臉還有火，火代表溫暖，表達希望，這就是一個女性藝術家的底線。

她，屬於東方。