展期 Period：
2024.5.17—2024.6.29
艺术家 Artist：
地点 Venue：
马凌画廊 Kiang Malingue（香港适安街）
前言 Introduction：
马凌画廊呈现郑洲于画廊的第四次个展「西班牙烤鱼」，展出郑洲在2019年至2023年间创作的绘画作品。
郑洲在近年创作的绘画作品持续以绚丽颜料在画面上的自由塑形过程为基础，通过近乎问卜的方式从颜料与空白画布的互动关系中寻求形象与象征：在创作时，郑洲不以直接反映现实情景为目的，也不预先设定画作主题，而是任由颜料在自行绷制的画布上流淌，随后在流动的痕迹与沟壑之间发现偶得的人物、动物、草木、时节与叙事。在他看来，绘画姿态不在一笔笔的动作之中，而是在可长达半年的观看动作之中。通过反复检视处于不同阶段的画作，他为画面添加或和谐或诡谲的元素，以肌理丰富的笔触营造梦幻般的画面。
大尺幅作品《西班牙烤鱼》（2020）是郑洲近年绘画实践的范例，以彼此交融又互相排斥的色域分隔了画面。作品罔顾透视法对绘画平面施加的刻板规训，在热烈或清冷的多个区域中肆意置入影影绰绰的人物。对于郑洲来说，生死关系是绘画艺术旨在探索的终极问题；《西班牙烤鱼》中的骷髅头形象和怀中抱鱼的人物以克制的方式展现了他对生死流转的执着关注，花卉、石板、水滴、衣物等具象元素中则暗含占卜卦象一般的数学序列，在繁杂斑驳的构图中指示了秩序与混乱的辩证关系。
同样以人物形象为中心的《春光乍现》（2023）、《骄阳似火》（2023）及《山路》（2023）等作品也体现了独特于郑洲艺术体系的巫术、萨满式涌现过程：其中的人物似乎只不过是「偶然」出现的，他们的重要性并不比画面中的其他环境因素要高，而仅是应运而生的角色。这些无名、无身份的角色或是有机地成为背景的一部分——如山石一般嶙峋，如繁花一般锦簇——或是成为绘画的凹陷之处，为斑斓的画面提供了让目光稍息并驻留的场所。相较于自身创作与人物景象的因果关系，郑洲更关注艺术作为媒介的意义：「人的创造力是极其有限的；只有偶然才是无限的。」他视其长期进行的绘画实践及非银盐摄影实践为传导并具象化偶然性的契机，用以揭示命运在当代世界铺陈的蓝图。
《折翅之鹰》（2020）及《荒原狼》（2020）在构图、尺幅、主题及色彩层面均与彼此呼应。在昏暗的环境中，树木或山石肆意地展现非自然的怪奇形态，几乎占据整个画面，并让其中的猛禽走兽陡增或挣扎或安宁的态势。此种不平衡、凶险的构图也在《初春曙光》（2019）及《漠北风光之二》（2019）中有所体现；这两件尺幅规格互相对应的风景绘画在恬淡的表面下涌动暗流，以层次丰富的白色色域衬托枝丫和绿意。
Kiang Malingue presents Zheng Zhou's fourth exhibition with the gallery "Spanish Grilled Fish", showcasing more than ten paintings completed between 2019 and 2023.
Zheng has continued in recent years to base his painterly creations on free movements of brilliant colours, seeking visions and signs from the interplay of the paint and the canvas in a manner similar to ancient Chinese divination practices. When painting, Zheng is less concerned with representing fragments of reality or producing a predetermined scene, than with observing the free flow of paint on self-stretched canvases, before discerning in the splashes and drips human figures, animals, plants, atmospheres and stories. For Zheng, the proper act of painting is, instead of the actual mark-making process, the viewing experience in the studio, which might last up to six months. He constantly and repeatedly examines the paintings in different stages, adding new elements that can be either harmonious or unsettling, rendering richly textured, fabulous scenes.
Spanish Grilled Fish (2020) is exemplary of Zheng's painting practice, dividing the composition into colour patches that contrast and complement one another. Perspective is irrelevant here, since the artist casually distributes shady characters across hot and cold areas. For Zheng, the ultimate question in painting is life and death; the skulls and the figure carrying a fish express his mortal concerns, while the hexagram-like patterns found in the flowers, stones, raindrops and garments signify the artist's preoccupation with the dialectic of order and chaos in a complex image.
Also placing characters in the centre, Sudden exposure of spring (2023), Sun searing like fire (2023), and Mountain trail (2023) also demonstrate the shamanic nature of Zheng's artistic practice: the characters are in place "by accident," and are not given greater significance than other atmospheric elements in the paintings. As fortuitous beings, the nameless, identity-less characters either organically become one with the environment—as rugged as the rocks, as florid as the flowers—or become hollowed silhouettes where the audience's viewing gaze may rest and linger. Instead of focusing on the creationist relationship between mark-making and figuration, Zheng is more concerned with using art as a medium: "Human's creativity is extremely limited; only chance is infinite." He understands his long-term painting practice and non-silver photography as processes that mediate and actualise chance, unveiling the destiny that awaits the contemporary world.
Eagle with broken wings (2020) and Wasteland Wolf (2020) share a thematic, colour, compositional, and formal correspondence. In similarly dark environments, trees and rocks whirl and sprawl in formidable, unnatural ways, effectively dwarfing the majestic beasts. This kind of unbalanced composition is also visible in the pair of Early spring sunshine (2019) and Scenery beyond the north of the desert 2 (2019). These two landscape paintings once again depict distinct scenes in the same slender format, celebrating vibrant undercurrents—springtime vitality.
