2022
序曲 No.42
150X160 cm
亚麻布面丙烯
Prelude No.42
59x62 in
Linen and acrylic
            

Li Peng's Painting Art: Color Is Emptiness—or a Space Filled with Color
—— Xia Kejun
（Philosopher, Curator, Doctoral supervisor, Renmin University of China）
          Painting is work, and the work of abstract painting is to immerse yourself in the breath of color, so that the colors can be fully and abundantly displayed on the two-dimensional canvas piece by piece. This requires protracted work, one piece after another, one picture after another. The color block seems to become the rhythm of time and space, from small squares to large squares, single color or several color blocks. The color block is not a color, but a breathing element; painting is no longer the object of depiction, but it becomes a part of life.

          For ten years like a day, he has devoted himself to the work of color blocks silently. From one piece to one meter; from one meter to ten meters, to fifty meters or one hundred pieces, until the whole space is filled with color! This is Li Peng's way of working. It is not only a kind of work but also a philosophy of painting. The fuller it is, the more ethereal it is. The more gorgeous it is, the duller it is. The more sliced it is, the more complete it is.

          In this solo exhibition at Ningbo Art Museum, Li Peng intends to to fill the entire tall space with his own paintings, making the paintings a palace of colors, a paradise for the dreams of colors themselves.

          As an artist who could spend almost ten years painting large and small color blocks, what he makes will no longer be simple paintings, but “scripture reciting”, a kind of an exercise in color. Therefore, painting has become a way of self-cultivation, that is why the title of this exhibition is " Color Is Emptiness".

          Color is emptiness, and emptiness is color (/ Form itself is emptiness; emptiness itself is form.). This is the most charming posture in painting, or a philosophy of work: on the one hand, completely forgetting oneself, when the soul goes out of the body, integrating into the work of painting, i.e., emptiness is color. On the other hand, its stimulates the infinite possibility of color and makes it fully permeating in every moment, which is color is empty.

          For the painter Li Peng, this is not the color, but the ego. In fact, this is not an ego, but the absolute witness of painting, letting the color speak, or express itself, fully express itself.

          "Color", in Li Peng's etymology, becomes an element that fills the space. It is not just a picture, but juxtaposed piece by piece, a palace of planes. One could find out the painter's tribute to master Rothko; also how the painter, who learned the truth from the abstract painting school in Munich, Germany, took color and space as his only themes.

          In fact, Li Peng has always liked woodworking. For him, painting is kind of a craftsmanship. He is diligent and accurate, faithful to the flatness of the abstract two-dimensional plane, segmenting by color, covering by color, and implicitly transiting of color, thus constructing the fuge of the paintings. Fuge, a German word familiar to the artist, which has the double meaning of combining and dividing. Therefore, in the combination of color blocks, there are not only the mutual segmentation of geometric shapes, but also the triangles and triangles, squares and squares, squares within big frames, red within red, and blue within blue, constantly changing internally.

          Thus, the motives of music echoes, repetition and difference. In the simplicity of color, there is a subtle breath and tremor. Only an artist immersed in color can so piously put together a piece of simple yellow, a piece of orange, and a piece of green, drawing a subtle sense of breathing, and furthermore, it is not just an abstract concept, but lets us perceive the vastness of the sky and the whisper of the night.

          Li Peng's sensitivity to color and material requires us to come and stay before his paintings. Otherwise, we will fall into the simple perception of abstract monochrome. His careful, even fastidious selection of canvases is to make the linen texture of the canvas retain the breath of texture after flat and slow brush strokes, and after smearing repeatedly. It seems that the color is not added to the painting, but immersed in time.

          Therefore, painting is not painting, but a study of feeling. It is devoted to the subtle perception of the complex changes between color and material, color and perception, and to achieve the purity and intensity of a color, on a two-dimensional plane. The color blocks, at the moment of pause, form the beauty of folds in the raised touch.

          This is the quality of an abstract painter, that is, to devote himself to the expansion of color in the plane space: there are both the division of geometric shapes and the contrast of colors. No matter the size, the artist does not want us to just look at a painting and perceive a color. Instead, he immerses us in a sea of colors.

          Because the original perception of painting is not just a conventional color, or an objectified work, but the whole that is filled with color, immersed in the breath of color. Just like the breath of a fetus in the mother's body, this is a kind of the perception of Chora, a kind of selfless coexistence.

          Only then does painting return to the original world. Colors, like light, permeate us and vibrate with us unknowingly. But the painter, sensitive painter, just uses this vibration with the richest colors and as a whole full space, letting us get a conscious experience again.

          Painting and space; color is emptiness, and emptiness is color. What an abstract concept and philosophy! Thanks to the artist's persistent work and pure expression of differences, our eyes  brim with a full perception of abstraction for the first time in China!