本次展览特意展出了一些早年的画，起意于我的一次拜访。主人家墙上有几幅九零年代的素描，用笔熟练有力，形象生动，感人至深。我细看良久，说：“当年我的画也很像你的画，只是没这么好”。主人说：“这些画在当时我们圈子里很一般”。这话我信，那时大家在不同的地方，读同样的书，看同样的画册，被同样的东西打动。资源有限反而画的很好。展览上的《火车上的沉睡者》是在绿皮火车上画的，它明显带着那个时代的烙印。
上大学的那几年，讲座上听众爆满的大多是讲西方艺术。画画，听讲座，泡图书馆，回到寝室还得聊萨特卡夫卡，每天像是在干大事。我直接面对断桥上蜂蛹而来的人群写生，留下了这些《行走的人》，不知当时哪儿来那么多莫名冲动。
后来情况变化了，中国文化主题的讲座多了。我手里的西方哲学书也变成大部头的《宋画全集》了，游山玩水成了正事儿，脑子里都是笔简、迹淡、雅正这些字眼。不知不觉进入了一个我调侃自己的“油国画”阶段，展览里可以看到一些这个时期的作品。
没有想到我在一个地方一住二十多年，或许是因为这里有江有湖，有山有林。这也是我近期的作品的母体。可是一个光怪陆离的迅猛时代迎面涌来，我们还能不能瞅见那一抹山
在这个空间里能细致地分享自己的作品，势必得益于背后有许多人的鼓励和帮助，我心存感激。
This exhibition specially shows some of my early paintings, which were inspired by a visit to a friend's home . There were several sketches of the 1990s on the wall -- skillful, vivid and touching. I stared at them for a long time and said:"My early paintings were similar as yours, but not so good". While, the master said:"These paintings were very common in our circle at that time". That's true. The young at that time usually read the same books and the same pictures and got touched by the same things, even though we lived in different places. It was quite unexpected that limited resources made good pictures. 'Sleepers on A Train' in the exhibition were painted on green trains, which bears the brand of that era.
When I was a college student, the popular lectures were all about Western art. The day was filled with painting, listening to lectures, studying in library and talking about Jean-Paul Sartre and Franz Kafka. Every day seemed to be doing something big. Directly facing the crowds coming from the broken bridge, I created these 'Walking People' . I didn't know where came so many inexplicable impulses at that time.
Later the situation changed. There were more lectures on Chinese culture. The western philosophical books in my hands also became the most extensive 'Complete Works of Song Paintings', and sightseeing became a matter of importance. My mind was full of such words like 'simple strokes', 'light traces' and 'elegant rectification'. Unconsciously, I entered a stage of 'oil Chinese painting' . Some works of this period can be seen in the exhibition.
It never occurs to me that I have been living in one place for more than twenty years, perhaps because there are rivers and lakes, mountains and forests, which are also the matrix of my recent works. But a strange and rapid era is coming, can we still see the existing mountains?
I am grateful for the encouragement and help from many people behind me and sharing my works carefully in this space.
