《随风而逝》是周钲清创作于2010年至现在的一组系列绘画作品，给我最深的印象是作品中自由率性的笔触与线条，描绘着虚实相生的形象，细腻的色彩、诗意的氛围扑面而来，犹如炎热的夏季吹过一阵清凉的风。叙事性的画面上，静止的蜘蛛、爬行的蚂蚁、飞舞的蜜蜂、飘零的花瓣、流逝的落叶如流动的镜头，引领着我们进入广袤的自然中，山脉、河流、草丛、密林、乌云、道路、田野……这些自然的意象组成我们似曾相识的场景，却又与现实有着难以言说的距离，它们是周钲清的内心景观与自然景观对话、交融后的世界，这个世界微观、细腻、诗意、忧伤，一幅幅画面成为艺术家的内心独白，赤裸裸地呈现在观众面前。

　　在艺术世界里找到自己的人是幸福的，在这一点上，周钲清比许多同龄的艺术家幸运，他对艺术的真诚与投入获得了回报，创造之门通过绘画的方式开启了，他得以相遇未知的自己，洞悉世界——人——个体的奥秘，一条通向过去的未知的路，艺术家就是这条路上的还乡者。周钲清有着曲折的生活经历，童年父母的离异，为求学的四处奔波，不断变动的生活环境，艺术成为艺术家心灵的慰籍，并塑造了他以积极乐观的心态去改造自己的现实和面对周遭的环境，如同他画中的蚂蚁和蜜蜂，微小却顽强，它们趟过狂风暴雨，也遇见雨后绽放的彩虹（《赞美诗》2011年）……而画面流淌着的忧伤气息我更愿意理解为艺术家对微小短暂却美好的生命的追忆与叹息，因为短暂而更显美丽，令人珍惜。

　　和许多艺术家一样，周钲清的绘画之路也经历了学院系统的训练，他早年的作品有着印象主义的光色与构图，作品中漂亮的色彩、老练的用笔、完整的构图，堪比美院系统中规范的风景写生画范本，却唯独看不见他自己（《嵩明风景》2007年）。周钲清的自我寻找与觉醒之路是在一次次走进自然的写生过程中开启的，记得2008年我们一起到哀牢山写生，他在正午的烈日下完成了《巨石后的枯树》，画面上，巨大的、红色的石头后，一棵光秃秃的树倔强地生长出来，异常刺激而醒目，背景翠绿的颜色则强化了冲突的氛围，一改以往温文尔雅的画面，一个真实的周钲清凸显出来。写生过程中的异常经验成为周钲清打开自己内心世界的契机，让他于无意中联通了表现主义绘画的精神通道。“表现主义”是上个世纪初出现于欧洲的艺术流派，它通过主观化的夸张、变形等艺术处理手法，以强调和追求艺术家个体心灵的真实而迥异于其他艺术流派，被称为表现主义之父的梵高，终其一生都在追逐着阳光与自然，最后在阳光灼热的麦田里轰然倒下，一如传说中追逐太阳而死的巨人夸父，为后世树立了艺术殉道者的典范，不断激励着那些默默无闻的艺术挚爱者们。周钲清的绘画觉醒之路亦充满了奇遇，这些由神话、想象、梦境交织成的画面正是原始、神秘的自然与他内心相遇、对话的真实写照。同时，作为中国人，周钲清的表现主义风格的作品还是不同于西方的表现主义绘画，同为借景抒情，西方的表现主义画家通过对个体的宣泄与表达，走向偏执、迷狂和几近虚无和分裂的境地，而中国的表现主义绘画则同时沿袭了中国写意绘画的传统，艺术家们对个体的宣扬与发现，最终还是为了回到澄怀观道、融入自然，抵达心灵的平和与自由之境，这种中国艺术家共同面对的文化语境亦构成了周钲清绘画风格形成的背景，在他的许多绘画作品中，狂暴、愤怒的情绪交织着诗意的抒情与伤感，这种互相矛盾的情绪构成了他绘画的一大特点，这种情绪既是他绘画的原动力之一，但也可能成为他绘画创造与突破的障碍。作为他的师长与朋友，我希望他在一次次的绘画行为中实现自我的突破，抵达更为广阔的世界，届时，他为我们呈现的，一定是另一番境界与画面。
                                          
 
       
                                   　　　　　　　　　　　　　2011年12月20日于云艺苑
 
                      Gone with the Wind
------Interpretation of Zhou Zhengqin’s Painting Works

　　Gone with the Wind is a series of painting works which have been making from the year 2010 up to now. What impress me most is the free and willful strokes and lines presented in the works, in which the trueness and falseness are mutually depicted. It seems that the greeting exquisite color and poetic atmosphere have brought us the comfort of a cool breeze in the heat of summer. In those narrative pictures, the motionless spiders, the crawling ants, the dancing bees, the falling petals, and the passing leaves, like flowing and changing shots, welcome us into a wide range of nature world ----the mountains, the rivers, the thick growth of grass, the densely-wooded forest, the dark cloud, the paths and roads, the field ……. all these nature images produce some scenes which we seem to have met somewhere before, but the unspoken distance from the reality can equally be felt. They are nothing but a sort of communication between the natural landscape and the internal-mind landscape of Zhou Zhengqin’s. They present us a blended world in harmony, which is composed of microcosm, exquisiteness, poetry, and desolation. The artist’s internal monologue has been presented, without any reservation, before his viewers by the series of pictures.

　　Happy is a man who has found his true self in the world of art. In this regard, Zhou Zhengqin is more fortunate than many other artists of his own age. His faith and investment in art are well paid when the gate to creation opens in the way of painting. He has the fortune of meeting an unknown self and getting insight into this world -----its individuals and their mystery, and also finding a road to the unknown past. It is artists that are some homebound walkers on this road. Zhou Zhengqin’s past was full of ups and downs ----- the divorce of his parents when still a child, running around for education, unstable living environment. All these have made art the spiritual comfort of this artist, and equally made him, with positive and optimistic attitude, reform his own reality and face up to the surroundings. Like the ants and bees in his paintings, tiny as they are, they have indomitable spirit. Having weathered violent storm, they finally deserve the sight of rainbow (The Hymn, 2001)……I tend to interpret the sense of desolation conveyed in the picture in this way : this artist , with regret, expressed the shortness of a beautiful life. The shorter, the more beautiful. Isn’t it something worth treasuring?

　　 Like many other artists, the training of academic system also witnessed Zhou Chongqing’s painting experience. The light color and composition of impressionism appear in his early works, in which beautiful color, skillful strokes, and complete composition are no worse than the model of landscape paintings from life in the academic system. The pictures are full of everything but his own style(Landscape in Songming, 2007). The road of Zhou Zhengqin’s self-seeking and awakening was opened in the process of time-after-time nature painting from life. In 2008, we had a painting from life activity in the Ailaoshan Mountain. I still remember, in the scorching sun, he completed his work of a Withered Tree behind a Rock. In the picture, behind a huge, red rock stands a leafless bare but stubborn tree, extraordinarily stimulating and striking. In its background, the color of bright green intensifies the atmosphere of this conflict. The picture is absolutely different from his gentle and graceful ones in the past. Then and there, another Zhou Zhengqin, a true one, emerged. The unusual experience in the process of painting from life brought him the momentum to open his internal world. Consequently, he, probably without knowing it, has linkup up the spiritual passage of expressionist painting. Expressionism is an art school arising in Europe in the early years of last century. By its artistic expression like subjective exaggeration and deformation, expressionism, which seeks and emphasizes the trueness of individual minds of the artists, differs from other artistic schools. Van Gogh, father of expressionism, went after sunlight and nature all his life, only to fall down in the sun-scorching cornfield. Like Kuafu, a mythical giant who ran after the sun but died at last, Van Gogh sets a model of martyr for the course of art. Encouraged by him, more art lovers, though unknown to the public, follow. Zhou Zhengqin’s awakening road to painting is full of wonder meetings. The pictures, mixed together by myths, imagination, and dreamland, is the very meeting of the primitive, mysterious nature and his internal mind. These mind talks resulted in his nature portrayal true to his inside. However, as a native Chinese, Zhou Zhengqin’s expressionist style also has its difference from that of his counterparts in the western countries. Using the same subject of melting emotions into settings, expressionist painters in the western countries, by expressing and unbosoming individuals, tend to lead their works into a condition of bigotry, deliria, nihility, and split. However, apart from its original style, expressionist painting in China follows the tradition of Chinese freehand brushwork painting. By using the means of unbosoming and rediscovering individuals, artists, in the long run, still hope to return to the condition of aesthetic realm, to melt their works into nature, and to find the peace and freedom of mind. It was from the cultural context which is shared by all Chinese artists that Zhou Zhengqin’s painting style took its shape. In a number of his painting works, the emotion of rage and anger is mingled with lyric poetry and sentiment. To a large extent, this kind of contradictory feeling characterizes his paintings. It marks the original motive power of his paintings, but it may be also changed into an obstacle of his creation and breakthrough. As his teacher and friend, I truly hope the self breakup of his may be realized in his practical painting activities, so that he’s likely to reach a wider art world. When the time comes, what he may present for us must be something different, pictures at another level.