李厚
Li Hou
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關於
一九三八年生於中國上海。李厚，字霄孫，出身滬上書香門第，自幼隨祖母譚志霄（譚嗣同侄女），父親李達（號無我）研習中國書畫。少年曾求學西畫，得顏文樑親授。至七十年代，傳統水墨頗有小成，但李厚於水墨之探索，未曾止步於傳統領域，毅然投身現代水墨之創作，漸離實相而書法筆墨之功更勁，雖備受時議而堅定前行，至今仍不倦於抽像水墨之創作。現居美國麻州波士頓市郊，聽爵士，寫黃庭，自在逍遙。
李厚自述 －
⋯⋯我自1990年始，首訪德國，再轉至美國，又回到中國。游弋在東西方之間，時間達20餘年之久。所見所聞之繪畫藝術，給自己帶來的變化難以言表。追求藝術變化發展的時候，呈有感而發、有感而變的狀態。同時，我過去學習的晉唐楷書、宋人行書、元代山水，與學而時習之的中國書畫也一起走出來了。
中國傳統的“筆墨”與西方現代繪畫中的點、線、面、平面構成發生接觸，發生混亂—碰撞—融合。在這個過程中，一些我認為好的畫，如神來之筆、天成之作，倉促之間已然成真，回頭看，這些畫是因為有了當時環境和藝術靈感才繪就斯圖。如古人所說：「此情可待成追憶，只是當時已惘然。」感覺落在紙上，我本人也說不清了。
現在面對自己的舊作，看看、想想，別說我自己，連畫本身也有命運，也活在各種境遇之中。箇中滋味，誰能知呢？藝術的真實是別樣的。也許「混沌才是藝術的清晰」；也許「模糊才是藝術的準確」⋯⋯這「天高任鳥飛，海闊憑魚躍」的時代，為藝術和藝術家提供了機會。本人只是在「經歷」和「閱歷」雙翼的驅動下，做了一些繪畫探索，要說的話，全在畫中，請君閱評。
Li Hou, aka Xiao Sun, was born 1938 in Shanghai. Part of family heritage, Li studied, under his grandmother and father, the traditional Chinese art of painting and calligraphy. As a teenager, Li started to study Western oil paintings under the oil master Yan Wenliang. Soaking himself in classic studies and traditional Chinese art forms throughout the Cultural Revolution, Li emerged as a well-established ink wash painter and calligrapher in the 70s. Li started experimenting with abstract and expressionist methods while using traditional Chinese media of ink and rick paper. Though controversial at the time, he persisted with his explorations. In the mid-80s, Li was invited to travel abroad to Europe and the US as a visiting scholar, in first hand contact with the Western classics and the contemporary art for the first time, and his new work started to come of age. His art bridges east with west, past with present, is both deeply profound in nuances and thoroughly captivating in emotion. Li currently resides in the suburbs of Boston MA and travels to China freely. He enjoys jazz, writes calligraphy and paints, and continues the pursuit of his unique art form as a true free spirit.
Self-Statement /
Starting from 1990, in various occasions, I visited Germany, traveled to the United States, and came back to China. For more than twenty years, I traveled back and forth, between the East and the West. The artworks that I observed and studied in the process, brought some inexplicable changes to me, and pushed me to pursue changes and development in artistic forms. During the same period, the traditional Chinese calligraphies and ink paintings that I once studied closely — the regular scripts that was developed in the Jin and Tang Dynasties, the running scripts that was perfected in the Song Dynasty, the landscape paintings that reached its peak during the Yuan Dynasty — were introduced to a wider audience outside of China.
The“strokes” in traditional Chinese calligraphy and ink painting, mixed, collided, and were eventually merged with the points, lines, surfaces, and structures in modern western paintings in my mind, a process during which paintings that I considered inspirational came together almost in an instant, as if guided by some mythic force. Looking back, I could only have painted those works in the specific environment, and with the specific inspirations, back then, just as an ancient Chinese poem says: our feelings and emotions become lasting memories, but the moment itself is lost. I could not explain it any more, once my feelings were put down on paper.
Looking at my old works, I thought, just like myself, each one of my paintings has its own life stories, and is living through various situations and circumstances. Who could feel their feelings?
The truth of art is unique. Perhaps chaos is the clarity in arts. Perhaps vague is the accuracy in arts…
This is an era with wide open possibilities and opportunities for art and artists. My artistic experiment and exploration was driven only by my personal experiences in life and arts, and everything I wanted to say is already in my works. I will let you be the judge.