Mao Xiaolang’s Artworks
As someone with very little talent for visual art, technique comes across like a magic trick. Looking at paintings I experience the same kind of wide-mouthed bafflement as I would in a ‘is this your card’ sleight of hand. It will never cease to amaze me how a flat piece of paper can be made to appear so real and three dimensional. This is something that impresses me particularly with Mao Xiaolang’s work.
我没有太多关于视觉艺术的天分，觉得画艺就像一个神奇的戏法。这些画让我感到困惑不解，就像见了“这是你的卡”的魔术表演一样，下巴都快掉下去了。我总是会感到相当惊诧，一张扁平的白纸怎么可以突然变得这样的真实，这样的立体（3D）。这是茅小浪的画让我印象格外深刻的地方。
It’s all grey and obscure, but clearly with deliberate intention. Mao Xiaolang likes to show the holes and dips and nooks and crannies of what might be landscapes of the ocean or industrial buildings like broken children’s playgrounds. Despite the wide swaths of darkness there’s a beautiful, intense detail in the entangled swirls and loops that often make up the basis for his paintings. There are shattered mirrors, hints of seafoam, mountains which may well be sleeping bodies, caves, sand dunes and bridges. Perhaps this says something about my inability to interpret art. After all, when my younger students gave me squiggles of multi-colours and I dutifully asked if they were making rainbows they would firmly inform me that they were snakes. Still, I think there’s something ambiguous in Mao’s artwork, as though you’re squinting at a strange place in the night-time with a vague understanding that you’ve been here before.
它们全都是灰色的，让人费解，但又清晰的留下了艺术家野心的痕迹。茅小浪喜欢去展现那些似乎是来自于海洋或者工业建筑中（比如一个破败的儿童游乐场）的孔隙、凹陷处、角落和裂缝。尽管在这些细节周围有一段段的黑色领域，这些相互缠绕着的、细腻的漩涡和圈圈构成了这些画的底色，并带着美丽的、丰富的细节。里面有破碎的镜子，海面上的些许泡沫，和山峰，但它们也有可能是沉睡的人体，洞穴，山丘和桥梁。也许我实在没有能力去阅读艺术。毕竟，当我那些年轻的学生给我看他们画的彩色的弯弯线条时，我老实的猜测，这些是彩虹吗，但他们却坚定的回答，这些都是蛇。不过，我觉得茅小浪的画里有些隐秘的东西，就像你在夜里眯着眼睛去看一处奇怪的地方，但你却隐约觉得，你曾经去过那里。
It’s all beautifully unclear and interestingly done. While skill evades me, my talent for curiosity and my desperate need to understand that which has deliberately remained obscure remains strong. So, let’s go to some questions in the hope that some brief answers from the artist will reveal more than my rambling ever could:
这些画里那些不明晰的东西是美丽的，艺术家完成它们的方式也是有趣的。虽然我不理解画艺，我还是格外希望能够保留下我那些还说不清的好奇心和想要接近艺术的心愿，它们依然很强烈。如果可以的话，让我们问艺术家一些问题。
Short Interview with Mao Xiaolang conducted by Cathy Davies
What do your pieces symbolise to you? 您如何思考艺术中的象征（以您的作品为例）？
The moment you start to feel it is art, my works begin to deliver some sense of symbols. 如果你感觉那是艺术，它就具有了某种象征。
Why the almost exclusive use of black and grey? 为什么您的画中几乎都由黑色和灰色主导?
Black, white and grey reveal the deep serenity of art to me, I am absorbed in this quiet world. 黑白灰表达的是艺术的沉静，我喜欢沉静。
What are you imagining when you create these pieces? 您在创作的时候会有怎样的想象呢？
I aspire to follow those evidences, no matter what, I have left and am leaving in this world; this is the base of all of my imagination. 被自己的痕迹引导，由痕迹触发想象。
What do you wish to inspire in others? 您希望您的作品对他人有什么样的启发吗？
To let others grasp even the tiniest hint of human breaths is all I can hope to ask from my audience. 别人能从我的作品里，感受到一种气息（或气质），目的就达到了。
Written by Cathy Davies
Chinese Translation by Ellie
Reference Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/UhJRzkYR87ZUIgJXz1F0yg
Aloka 