The sources of images in artworks fall into two categories. One comes from the objects that can be seen with our naked eyes. When they appear in artworks, we will incline to relate them with issues on nature and society. The other source of images, different from what we can see with naked eyes, stem from people’s inner world. Therefore, artists are probing into issues concerning human beings themselves when referring to this kind of images. 

Evidently, Yang Guang’s works belong to the second category. As a matter of fact, when we review the development of contemporary art in the northeast China, it turns out that the approach to reveal and present human’s spiritual world relying on image structures different from what we usually see has been a distinctive characteristic among many northeastern artists. This feature can even be traced back to the metaphysical painting school: inside Theodore Gericault’s grand Gothic building structures lingers nothing but the homeless spirit of modern people. In the 1980s, this Gericault-kind solitude became the main theme of the “Northern Group” whose members were mainly northeastern artists. This was by no means an imitation in terms of style and diagram, but the reflection on human’s ultimate destination originating from Europe at the beginning of last century retrieved widespread concern in China in the 1980s, leading the Chinese generation at that time to endless exploration.

With the extensive penetration of commodity economy, great changes have taken place in Chinese society and people’s values since the 1990s. As a result, the widely-accepted puritanical ideals and aspirations in the 1980s have been replaced by the prevalence of mercantilism. The expressions of contemporary art are changing with time too: colorful sensory stimulations have taken the place of lonesome contemplations. Having ushered in the 21st century, symbols, commodities and images turn out to be increasingly popular in contemporary art market. Under the impetus of the market, the aesthetic tastes of middle and upper class determine the quality of art as a commodity. In fact, contemporary art nowadays is confronted with a growing dilemma: on the one hand, critical thinking towards our society based on intellectuals’ standpoint reminds contemporary artists to keep a safe distance with society; on the other hand, the social role of art as a commodity also deems that art can no longer maintain the independent attitude in a growing commercialized society. This may reflect the tragedy of this intellectual generation: contemporary artists have to lay low their “posture” of clenched fists and promote their works as commodities to capitalists, the same as people wearing gorgeous costumes swarm to the streets joining in political campaigns. In these occasions, the theory of mass consumption has become their sole fig leaf as they can take advantage of the most popular theory to hide their most secular heart. Those stubborn artists who use the simplest way to complete their meditation on paintings are considered to be eccentrics in this circle. Increasingly, the combination of contemporary art and social conscience has been hindered by this vulgar value.

Yang Guang’s works, in my opinion, seem a bit outdated and demoded according to the present standards, but I find from his works a most valuable quality which is particularly precious nowadays: never reduce artworks to “pure commodities”. In fact, this ethics should act as the bottom line of basic integrity for all artists, however, tangible interests and “academic” inducement make many artists unable to comply with this basic requirement. When you see many middle-aged artists struggling clumsily to paint those symbols or even cartoons to cater to the market demand, it may dawn on you that to comply with the simplest ethics has become the most difficult task.

I was not familiar with Yang Guang before. When my friend Lin Dong, one of Yang Guang’s classmates introduced me his paintings, the first impression told me that these paintings must be created by an artist who followed and stuck to his own heart, otherwise there would not be a strong sense of tragic persistence in his paintings.

As mentioned above, the images appearing in Yang Guang’s works do not have corresponding prototypes in the real world, as these images act as a carrier to convey his inner feelings, a subjective “landscape”.

First and foremost, Yang Guang’s paintings are featured by a chilly and gloomy atmosphere. The lines in the pictures manifest the image of “road”, which appears many times in his works. It is well-known that the image of “road” in artworks generally represents the sub consciousness to escape to an ideal realm in the distance. However, the tree branches in his paintings, just like swords, thrust into the sky, intertwined like cobwebs and caltrops, which may imply the artist’s metaphor of a certain situation or feeling. When these two sentiments interweave together, a kind of psychological tension comes into being.

I would rather perceive this tension as the artist’s inner monologue than justify it with realistic rationality. Hence, even though human characters are rarely seen in his works, or just given some simple strokes, there does exist a “person” in the landscape of his paintings --- a modern Don Quixote who dares to do everything impossible, which is the very image of a modern intellectual.

In this sense, Yang Guang’s landscape paintings actually reflect the image of his inner world. Those images that do not exist in the real world in fact correspond to the inner world of his own which is filled with severity, ideal, perseverance and frustration…