At the northeastern corner of Beijing,
not far from the Capital Airport, Huang Shifang has found herself
a satisfactory studio.
"This is much better than before," she said, perching on
a chair in front of the stove, which burns honeycomb briquet.
Its warmth seems to disappear in the brick house. A quiet, greyish
white cat and a wet-nosed poodle vie for their mistress's attention
during our conversation. Around her, a host of bronze sculptures and
carvings stand on shelves, tables and floor and hang from the wall.
Since her first exhibition in 1994, Huang has become a well-known
figure in bronze art in China. Her second exhibition in May 2000 again
sent a shock wave through the art circle. Some of her friends and
colleagues at the Arts Institute in Tsinghua University (the former
Central Arts and Crafts Institute) marvel that all traces of her old
self have gone from her new works.
"I only speak with my work," said Huang, 38. "I have
produced many new works since 1994, but I had to postpone the second
exhibition because I was looking for a breakthrough."
Her relentless searching was richly rewarded. Huang has won high praise
from experts like Professor Li Yanzu, of the arts institute, who wrote
an in-depth analysis of Huang's works for the sixth issue of the Chinese
bimonthly "Literature and Art Studies" in the year 2000.
According to Li, Huang Shifang's works can roughly be put into three
categories: relief sculpture, stereo sculpture and burning copper.
Her most creative works are those made using electroform and burning
copper techniques, Li remarked.
In the corner of her studio stands a half-metre tall bronze vase with
a pile of bowls stacked on top of it. In the morning sunlight, Huang
showed me the bowls one by one.
Green, light blue, crimson, bright yellow - each had a different colour
tone, but each shared the same imaginative pattern quality.
"If you stare at them long enough, you might see dancing figures,
horses, dragons and coral in the bowls," said Huang.
Copper melts easily under electrolysis, and under a welding electrode
it can grow into various shapes with almost the same feel as coral.
Huang makes different colors by adding chemical materials, which flow
into and grow with the copper coral.
Huang brought one of her works made using this technique to the exhibition,
a corn-like vase with a huge beetle climbing up it. At the top of
the gilded vase is a bush of tassel made from copper wire.
"This is a combination of my old and new works," said Huang,
referring to the beetle, which is larger than an adult's hand. "But
what I'm experimenting with now is quite different."
From the low table laden with design books and other objects, Huang
picked up a dark green beer bottle. It was covered in an ochre-colored
net.
"I'm testing to see if I can make copper 'grow' around a bottle.
If it works, I'll take some of my hollowed-out works and let glass
'grow' inside them."
Huang is looking for glass factories to co-operate with her, understanding
that making glass is as difficult as shaping copper.
"The joy of suddenly grasping an image or an idea will flash
out in an instant - you can't beat it," she said. "It's
like cooking. I always like to put different things together to see
what will come out."
Wang Xiaoyi, Huang's husband, teaches at the arts institute. He has
supported his wife ever since they met at the institute 10 years ago.
Huang does not know if it is the joy of creation or the persistent
support of her husband that has kept her going so far along the lonely
path of bronze art.
Born in an artistic family in Xi'an, the capital of Northwest China's
Shaanxi Province, Huang started painting and doing other creative
things at the age of six. She studied fashion before coming to Beijing,
but found the decorations on the clothes more attractive.
In 1989, when Huang came to the former Central Arts and Crafts Institute,
she was one of the nine students studying metal arts and crafts. Few
graduates ever went on to work after completing the course.
Huang soon understood why.
While her classmates remained content with assorted small ornaments,
Huang fell in love with copper.
The students occasionally got copper sheets to work with, and Huang
made beetles and small animals. Her friends snatched them away before
she could make the final touches.
Huang began knocking the level copper sheets into shape, then using
welding electrodes for more complicated patterns.
When she first came to Beijing, Huang had to change clothes three
times a day to suit different occasions. But her love for copper grew
so strong that she would leave her blackened face unwashed when she
went to lunch.
"I would work from early in the morning into the late afternoon
before eating instant noodles. I would lie paralyzed in the dormitory,
but when I thought about the unfinished work, I struggled to the classroom
again and worked until 10 at night, when they locked all the doors,"
she recalled.
Her hard work does not show on her youthful, smooth face with barely
discernible lines around her eyes.
Upon graduating in 1991, Huang faced the immediate problem of where
to live. She believed Beijing had a wider art landscape than her hometown.
A friend lent her a disused warehouse. At night, she slept on friends'
floors and during the day she buried herself in her copper art.
Huang did not dare to leave her art in the warehouse in case they
were stolen and sold as scrap metal. If she worked particularly late,
she would have to carry the copper sheets through the night on an
old bike along muddy roads.
"I just wouldn't give up and go home," she said. "There
was such a strong impulse in me that called out, 'Go on, create more!"
The situation improved with her marriage a year later. When her husband,
who also came from Shaanxi Province, became a teacher at the institute,
the couple gained their own space.
Their first home, in Beijinger's local words, is just a "ga-la,"
which means "a tiny corner." Beneath the staircase over
the first floor of the institute's dormitory building, the couple
built their home. Most of the 70 works in Huang's first exhibition
were created there.
Bronze is one of the oldest materials used in Chinese culture. In
the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties (21st century BC - 256 BC), bronze
was the predominant metal used in making sacrificial vessels, which
symbolized state power.
In the 1980s and 1990s, contemporary Chinese artists reached a peak
in relief sculptures on the basis of traditional techniques and themes.
Huang was clearly one of the best.
In an exhibition in May 1994, the most eye-catching works were the
"Four Gods."
Huang drew inspiration from the images of the Green Dragon, White
Tiger, Black Warrior (an epithet for the tortoise) and the Scarlet
Bird, which respectively commanded the east, west, north and south
groups of the 28 constellations in the universe defined by ancient
Chinese scholars.
Huang's intricate background patterns make a sharp contrast to the
main designs, which are symmetrical and balanced. According to Li
Yanzu, such fine works require a master hand in repetitive firing
and beating, which must leave no trace on the final smooth surface.
Huang refrained from talking about her hard efforts in creating her
art. Instead she smiled, "I bet my husband I could finish the
four pieces within 15 days.
He didn't believe me because I once spent a month on a much smaller
work. The Green Dragon took me the longest time, but still I won a
bike from him."
After her successful exhibition, Huang was flooded with media interest
and invitations to make works. She has just finished four huge bronze
pictures in the halls of Hong Kong, Macao, Hainan and the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
In 1998, she heard that the Famen Temple in Xi'an intended to refurbish
the underground chamber where Sakyamuni's phalanxes were unearthed
in 1987.
Known as She-li-zi in China and Sarira in India, the remains of Sakyamuni
- or monks - after their cremation are holy objects in Buddhism.
Originating from the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220), the Famen Temple
holds a high place in Buddhism.
"People say the Famen Temple is the Great Hall of the People
at grassroots level. I must send my works there," said Huang.
A dozen or so individuals and teams from across the country came to
compete for the chance.
Contestants were asked to hand in a model of the bronze plates to
be hung on the ceiling, walls and the columns of the underground chamber.
Huang was four months pregnant at the time, but said nothing. The
copper sheets were too big for the tables, so she had to kneel on
the ground to knock out the rough outlines before refining them.
"My belly ached hard after such a day's work. Sometimes I worried
if I would lose both the chance and my baby," she said.
When she handed in her model plate three days later, some of the other
competitors had already quit.
Huang's son was more than 100 days old when she finally signed the
contract with the temple. In just seven months, she and a few assistants
had completed more than 100 Buddhist figures about a meter tall each.
"I am content and happy that my works are in such important places,"
said Huang.
When Huang first accepted commissions in 1995, she was almost alone
in the market and the price for each square meter of bronze sculpture
was 5,000 yuan (US$602) on average. With more and more people thronging
into the lucrative business, the price has dropped to less than 1,500
yuan (US$180.7).
As not many people demand a very high artistic level, Huang often
loses contracts to counterparts who offer lower prices and poorer
quality art.
Each kilogram of copper sheet currently costs 4.4 yuan (US$0.53).
A simple design of less than 1 square metre needs 4-5 kilograms of
copper. Finer designs and more techniques will multiply the cost and
time.
"I don't think I should lower my standards to cater to the market.
But on the other hand, I need the commissions to support my research
and creativity with new bronze art," said Huang.
(China Daily 01/11/01) |
