EXHIBITED:
Luo Zhongli: The description of the replaced, Exhibition Hall of Contemporary Art, Suzhou Museum, Suzhou
September 10 - October 20, 2011

ILLUSTRATED:
Luo Zhongli: The description of the replaced, Culture and Art Publishing House, Beijing, 2011, color illustrated, pp. 38-39

Luo Zhong-li, while recalling the original intent of his artistic creation, expressed a wish to speak for honest and ignored farmers because they are always the ones who get the short shrift. It is due to his profound personal experience and strong sense of mission that his works are filled with powerful sentiment. His first well-known work, "Father," came from his life experience as a young intellectual, who went to Daba Mountains to work as a boiler operator during the Cultural Revolution. "Father" abandoned the conventional farmer images from the Cultural Revolution, in which farmers had to be "tall, big, and whole" and "red, bright, and glowing," a fixed pattern in propaganda art. Luo successfully touched the hearts of tens of millions of Chinese people by using a photorealistic approach and a super large canvas—which previously had only been permitted to use for painting significant historical events—to carefully depict the image of a Chinese farmer. After "Father" he successively completed several similar works, such as "Year End" and "Golden Autumn." Narrative elements were important in the works created in the 1980s. They left behind the conventional restrictions of subject and form in order to lead viewers' gazes on the trivial but real daily lives of farmers. Gleaning, cultivating, making baskets, falling in love, taking a bath, wiping away sweat, and blowing dregs, these ordinary pieces of life all became the main threads for Luo's creations. After years of experience and exploration, he accomplished the famous "Daba Mountains" series.

Studying in Europe at an early age gave Luo a solid foundation in artistic skills. He was fascinated by the works of master artists. The light, the shadow, and the bright color of the impressionists left a great impact. However, that never changed his fundamental view towards art and life. Although his style has undergone a huge change from photorealism to expressionism, his passion for rural life was never altered. Warm and sentimental country life has always been his source of inspiration. Luo never stops exploring art. After the year 2000, apart from his rural subjects, Luo also began to take inspiration from folk art, and tried to find a conjunction between art and folk culture.

"Blowing Series" is one of the artist's favorite subjects. He has depicted this action in various ways. His early "Blowing Series", oil on board created in 1983, depicts a couple standing in the woods with a man gently blowing away the dregs from the eyes of a woman. His detailed and realistic style carefully shows the mellow, simple, and natural images of the two characters. The whole picture is full of the flavor of life. Later in 1996 Luo tried to work on this theme again. The story is still about a man blowing off dregs for his lover. This time, he renders the characters in a vivid and vigorous image with his rough, heavy, and intertwined brush strokes. His 2006 painting "Blowing Series" demonstrates the artist's profound achievement after years of artistic exploration. The theme is still about a loving couple, but the background is now a black canvas. Lines replace detailed strokes to sketch exaggerated and twisted human images. Luo employed folk art techniques by boldly using saturated colors in between, such as blue, yellow, red, and green, which shows a strong contrast to the black background. The density between the curved and straight lines provides a smooth rhythm to the picture. This new attempt transcends the limit of the narrative language in painting, turning itself into a deep and literary illustration. Art critic Yin Shuangxi once said, "Actually, Luo's works provide us with a reference to existence, an eternal value of human interaction. When we see his works from this perspective, the lives of the farmers in Daba Mountains go beyond regional natural landscape and become a reflection on our national spirit and value in the process of modernization."