About the Series · Self-Portrait
On 23 March 1987, his fifteenth birthday, at the moment of a decision toward death, he threw himself into art — like Chongren Li'en surviving alone in the flood inside a sheepskin drum, taking art as the boat to cross the flood of life and death. From then on he has recorded himself each year with a self-portrait, checking in, unbroken for nearly forty years. From one or two a year to dozens a year; from pencil to oil, ink, installation, image, sound and verse; from the primitive and clumsy to wandering freely among mountains and waters — any means at all comes naturally. The number and the media can no longer be counted. These are not works; they are the traces of life itself. He does not chase style, does not hold to form, only sees as things are. At fifty-five it still continues. Art gave him a second life, so he observes himself with his life — to live is to record.
Full Essay
On 23 March 1987, on his fifteenth birthday, the artist made a decision between life and death, a decision toward death — to throw himself into art. That pencil drawing became the origin point; the strokes are clumsy, the paper has brown spots and creases, the truest imprint of time. That moment is exactly like the Naxi ancestor Chongren Li'en surviving alone in the flood inside a sheepskin drum: heaven and earth overturned, only “I” and “art” depending on each other, taking art as the boat to cross the flood of life and death.
“Art gave me a second life, so I want to use my life to observe myself.”
From fifteen to fifty-five, for nearly forty years, he has recorded himself continuously in self-portraits — not beautifying, not performing, not pursuing style, only seeing as things are. As natural as breathing, never interrupted. This is not a “work” but a kind of checking-in self-archaeology. From one or two a year at first to dozens a year later, the number can no longer be counted. Form and medium cannot be exhausted either — pencil, oil, acrylic, ink, line, sunflower-seed shells, clay, kiln fire, installation, image, video, sound, verse, action, diary, way of life… any so-called means is here called natural, from the primitive to the traditional, from the ordinary to modern conceptual art, from the realistic to abstract experiment, from the clumsy knife to wandering freely among mountains and waters — no more than the true developing of different stages of a life.
Chongren Li'en married the vertical-eyed heavenly maiden and bore monsters; he married the horizontal-eyed heavenly maiden and propagated three peoples — “failure” as a necessary road, and “the true” must pass through “perspective” in order to continue. So it is with the artist's self-portraits: the early realist period is like the “truth” of the vertical eye, facing the “I” in the mirror directly and being dissolved by it; the later material period is like the “seeing” of the horizontal eye, and only by borrowing the “masks” of sunflower-seed shells, clay and kiln fire could “naked life” be transmitted. Not chasing style, not holding to medium, not distinguishing high from low, not counting the number, only recording as things are. Clumsiness is not a defect; it is the starting point of the true. Ease is not the end point; it is the continuing present.
Every painting, every stretch of image, every line of verse, every sound, every checking-in, is the testimony of that year's “I” in a natural state — unadorned, unavoided, unexplained. These are not works; they are the traces of life itself.
At fifty-five it still continues, because “observing oneself” has long since ceased to be “doing” a thing and become “being” a way of existing — as natural as breathing, and as important. To live is to record.