Simple Format , But a Moving Sentiment from Careful Observation

The theme of the grassland under Sun Zhijun has been divided into the three parts of the earth, the sky and the man and animals. He endowed them the new expression of water-ink painting. Questions and answers such as “where do we come from?” “who are we?”and “where are we going?”are imbedded in them. Of course, these are only the questions and answers of Sun Zhijun’s style. His answers are almost plain, but with a cultural pride. We would be more accurate in saying that Sun Zhijun presents us with a “grassland”from the perspective of his personal feelings or even the incorporated mediation of sensibility and fun, the objectivity and subjectivity rather than that he is expressing the “grassland”many have experienced. The stuff he has been handling with such a cool-headedness is drawn from his unique sentiment.

In the eyes of Sun Zhijun, the theme of grassland maintains man’s holy feeling towards such things as the sky, the earth and the human beings. This is self-evident as long as you read his works carefully. This is so because the earth and clouds, large and profound, can better aspire the soul and feelings of the mankind, and incite human beings to respond to them out of their thinking. Ultimately, the earth and clouds become the huge space where man’s spirit can roam.

In order to express his artistic thinking and cultural nostalgia, Sun Zhijun has set down his own form of language to express his feelings. He takes a liking for the expansion, crossing and overlapping, co-existence and alternation of curved lines that stretches horizontally to show the spaciousness of the grassland. This way, he forms an atmosphere where the audience will catch the mysterious whisper of the sky and the earth in silence and where the lonely travelers - the herdsmen - can listen to the call of their souls. There arises in his simple form a touching sentiment from careful listening.

It must be noted that the horizontal design of paintings remains the pursuit of Sun Zhijun. This is a summary of the earth in the form of geometry. However, the simplicity in form has successfully compared the theme of grassland to the eternal spiritual journey of the mankind. We may notice the unique feature of calm and restraint hidden in the paintings. The artist adopted the wet painting method in depicting the unison of the sky, the earth and man on the grassland. The combination of the imago and the skills and tones of ink have brought about a special order.

Sun Zhijun has chosen his language from the perspective of a man yearning for the grassland. Apart from obvious traits of “recalling”the grassland, there can also be found in his paintings the plain sentiment with the features of imagination. Obviously, his water-ink painting skills have borrowed from the composition of Western paintings. He has introduced space, perspective and sculpting, all from Western paintings, into his works. Based on the features of Chinese water-ink, he used scrubbing brushes with ink of different tones to paint the grassland, mountains, rivers and sky. This constitutes his probe and practice in trying to restore the energy of the language of Chinese water-ink painting.