A Sentiment

Wang Lin

Professor of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Art Critic

Wang Lin

Mr. Zhang Shaoxia's exhibition has a different significance. Looking at the scene around you, you can feel the aesthetic taste in his artistic creation - a sentiment. Speaking of this topic, it is worth exploring. Mr. Zhang Shaoxia's works primarily feature golf course landscapes, a theme that, on the surface, seems like just one of the many aspects of realistic painting. However, it holds crucial significance and value - it promotes the aesthetic improvement of the middle class in today's society, which is precisely a dynamic development in Chinese social reality worthy of attention. In this regard, it is interesting that Mr. Zhang Shaoxia paints golf courses because they are still developing in China. There are over ten thousand golf courses in the United States, two to three thousand in Japan, but only three to four hundred in China, which is a small proportion. In a sense, the number of golf courses reflects its developing trend in China. Mr. Zhang Shaoxia keenly highlights this theme through his creation. In a sense, this practice can change the structure of Chinese society because art often leads the way, arousing people's aesthetic taste through artistic creation and extending it, popularizing it among the masses. Thus, Zhang's works are significant to Chinese society, culture, and art.

An essential phenomenon in contemporary art is that art pays much attention to the venue because different venues mean different environments, conditions, and audiences. Contemporary art development is a trend of continuous differentiation without a single mainstream. Diversity consists of various levels, classes, and aspects with their respective artistic aspirations. When venue-based art becomes specialized, artists can carefully experience and create in such venues, creating different things. Art always dances with shackles, and it's made within certain limitations, such as how Mr. Zhang Shaoxia unfolds his creativity on a golf course. In a sense, he is working under a restricted theme to fully express his personal style, hobbies, and interests, as well as his techniques and expressions. We can observe from the works we see today that Mr. Zhang Shaoxia's underlying logic in his creation is thoughtful and targeted. In a sense, viewing this exhibition today will inspire us in many ways.

(Transcribed from interview recording)

The Golf Obsession and Middle-Class Culture: A Brief Discussion on the Underlying Logic of Zhang Shaoxia's Landscapes

Wang Lin

Professor of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Art Critic

Zhang Shaoxia's hundreds of landscapes are all about golf courses. The specificity of his artistic subject matter is indeed astonishing. He is not only an avid golfer who purposely travels to golf courses around the world but also a prolific writer and accomplished Chinese and Western art historian and decorative arts historian. One can feel from Zhang Shaoxia's books and paintings that he has a long-standing passion for golf. He may feel elated when scoring a birdie on a par 3 hole of Kiseena Park or feel like he had divine help when he hit nearly 300 yards at Sky Course. He may also feel frustrated when he loses his ball in the trees on some fairways. These emotions of joy, contentment, and disappointment are articulated explicitly in Zhang Shaoxia's Golf Journal and subtly and richly expressed in his landscapes, as shown in the bright and refreshing feeling of the grasslands, the anticipation of looking at the green from afar, and the sense of loss when the ball goes into the trees and is obscured by branches and leaves, among others.

The artistic style of Zhang Shaoxia's works is refreshing and vigorous, transparent and elegant, sometimes hazy or floating, with a literary and poetic quality. The compositions are mainly laid out horizontally, with expansive and stretched-out grasslands. The only difference lies in the depiction of the woods, creating a contrast with their dense and compact clusters, forming distinctions of different forms. The tone of Zhang's works is clear and definite, with a well-controlled balance of light and heavy warm and cool colors. The large-scale scenic areas and crowds of onlookers sometimes create contrasts of size and quantity, imbuing the works with the enduring significance of the form. Zhang Shaoxia's brushwork, whether in lines or blocks, conveys a sense of fluttering and soaring, as if capturing the visual impressions left in the moment of swinging a club and hitting the ball - the unforgettable impressions of the blue sky, white clouds, greenery, blue water, fairways, greens, water bodies, and flags. Zhang’s paintings are not on-the-spot drawings but a reminiscence of life's fleeting moments and golf-playing experience.

I noticed that the titles of Zhang's works always meticulously note the name of a golf course in a particular country or place. He has a special attachment to the places he has experienced. These locations serve as both the reason for his fascination and his escape. His art establishes a foothold for the growth of an artist's life between escape and infatuation. In a globalized era, the nomadic spirit has become a self-identity and symbol of status for the middle class, and inspiration sparked by various locations naturally becomes the basis for the diversity of contemporary art.

Golf courses, as distinctive sporting venues, often represent the lifestyle of the middle class, and it is worth discussing.

It is said that China's middle-class population has reached four hundred million since the reform and opening up, but this accounts for only about thirty percent of the total population nationwide. In contrast, in the Four Asian Tigers and developed Western countries, the middle class mostly accounted for over seventy percent of the total. The middle class can be seen as a balancer of developed societies and social development. Their likes influence the contemporary consumer society and cultural consumption, such as the production, collection, and appreciation of contemporary art. Therefore, expanding the middle class is one of the critical indicators of China's current path toward modernization. It can be confirmed by Zhang Shaoxia's analysis of golf courses: "According to statistics, there are nearly forty thousand golf courses worldwide. In the vast territory of the United States alone, there are twenty-five thousand golf courses; even a small country like Japan has two or three thousand. However, only three to four hundred golf courses are operating in China, indicating that this sport is far from popular in China." It is no exaggeration to say that golf is a pioneering driving force for China's modernization process. Therefore, Zhang Shaoxia is sensitive and determined about his painting direction.

Extension of the Green Fairway (Douglaston Plaza Golf Club) 120×65cm Oil on Canvas 2022

Ultimate Test of Golf (Pine Valley Golf Club) 120×65cm Oil on Canvas 2021

Mr. Li Xiaoshan said, "Is Zhang Shaoxia's approach to the unique subject of golf courses appropriate? Is there a better way? Zhang is not satisfied with the current style, which he finds too proficient for his liking." As a renowned art historian, Zhang Shaoxia excels at self-reflection. Indeed, the only antidote to "mass-produced replicated paintings" may be staying conscious of the problems of contemporary art, including contemporary painting. In China, promoting the growth of the middle class while reflecting on the aesthetic inertia of middle-class culture poses a contradiction. The question of how to inspire artists to emerge or explore new paths in addressing this contradiction will be a test for Zhang Shaoxia's artistic life. I believe that after experiencing his first solo exhibition at the Nanjing University of the Arts (NUA), Zhang Shaoxia will approach his artwork creation and exhibition in different ways, bringing new surprises to the audience.

November 21, 2023

At Chongqing University Town’s Studio