“我有时候觉得我画画很费劲，就是我没有固定的方法。我必须要有个故事，否则，作品就会成为一个游戏。”17

　　读了这段话，可以假定马轲所有的作品都与一个这样或那样的故事有关。无论是常见的文学故事，还是尽人皆知的成语，即那些通常有着道德寓意的故事，也是马轲阐明，甚或，颠覆的东西。然而，在最终的作品中，任何方面的故事情节都是毫不相干的。故事是作为画面气氛的依据才存在的，毫无疑问，如此气氛下串起的故事张力给画面构图提供了一个框架，同样地，也是为了抵抗他上面所说的游戏天性。这就是为什么《刻舟求剑》中需要有个人物形象，也是为什么会有一条摇曳抖动的线条穿过男人的袖子，也是《杯弓蛇影》中第二个男性形象身不由己地被指证出来的原因。它是颜料适度的理由所在，是清晰的线条位置和形状所在，除此之外，任何一根线条或滴落的颜色就好像一条正在绘制的蛇脚。

　　故事的特定细节就是用以提醒观者，人类被教化的过程是多么神速，而道德立场又是多么容易变成被人嘲笑的理由。在这个语境中，《杯弓蛇影》很好地表达了马轲对人类的疑惧和麻木。其中包含了他的视觉词典中所有熟悉的元素：两个笨拙迟钝的人物形象，他们的姿势暗示着正在欺压一个挥舞着手指的受害者。所有的画面元素都预示着令人讨厌的恐惧天性，那也增加了他人的怀疑。马轲最喜欢的例子是《等待2》。“大家都在等待，因为我总觉得会有变化。”18他说道。《等待2》是他对“明天会更好”这一想法的回答。

　　然而，最为重要的是，马轲的作品依然有着绘画特点，这从第一笔落在画布上时便确立了。还包含怎样在创作过程中慢慢展开场景，如何形成空间感，画面中的每一样东西又是如何满足视觉关系转换需要的，这些改变或许会如戏剧一样出现在人们眼前。“有时候，我的绘画相对来讲是比较散漫的或者是很自由的一个状态，”马轲说道，“我没有集中说解决什么问题。”然而，证据显示，那些随处可见的变化多端的痕迹就是考虑画面走向的一个过程，在逐渐构造它们的过程中，它们的影子投在了半透明的颜料涂层上，并在最终的作品中与之相呼应。这些都是由来已久的关注点和价值观，在当代艺术中，它们起着支撑作用，却不是主导作用，但在马轲的画中，它是主角。

　　现如今，从事绘画创作是深具挑战性的。过去的中国画家曾在西方绘画中寻找灵感，以充满生气和多元化的场景为背景，即今天中国不再需要的东西。今天，整个儿世界都在努力找寻新的东西，因为，艺术家们要问的不仅仅“什么是绘画?”，而是“什么是艺术?”。为了回答这个问题，马轲学习了中国古典文化，这也是继续激励他前进的动力。“我慢慢地、直观地画画。我并不只关注一个问题。我经常跳一下，因为绘画我认为在我这拨人里边也是一个支离破碎的概念，什么是绘画?什么是我的绘画?”19

　　'At times, it is not easy for me to create as I have no fixed method or process in my work. I have to have a story or the painting becomes a game.'17

　　Reading this statement we assume that Ma Ke’s paintings must all relate to a story of one kind or another. Whether familiar cultural tale or proverb, the stories often have a moral purpose, which Ma Ke unravels and, occasionally, subverts. In the final paintings, however, any aspect of plot is irrelevant. The stories function as atmosphere; it is without doubt this atmosphere across which the tension is strung for the story provides the framework for mapping out a composition and, equally, for resisting the nature of the game he references. The story is the reason why the figure in the boat is there as in

　　Bull-headed; why a wavering line runs down a man’s sleeve and why a second male figure feels impelled to point it out as in

　　The Snake’s Shadow. It is the logic that impels the sobriety of the palette, the precise placing and form of the lines. It explains why the entire dynamic of a painting is just so, and marks the end point of the process, beyond which any single line or drip of paint would be like painting feet on a snake.

　　Where the stories are specific, they do serve to remind us how quick we are to moralise and how easily the moral ground is turned into a vantage point from which others can be ridiculed. In this context,

　　The Snake’s Shadow is a Ma Ke’s fine expressions of human doubt and insensitivity. It contains all the elements familiar to his visual lexicon: two awkward figures of stolid form, in postures that imply a bully bearing down on a victim who brandishes that awful accusing finger. All pictorial elements conspire to hint at the unsavoury nature of fear that bolsters suspicion of others. Ma Ke’s favourite example is Waiting 2. ‘Everyone in the world is waiting because everything changes,’18 he says. Waiting 2 is his response to the idea that tomorrow will be better.

　　Yet, beyond all else Ma Ke’s works are still about painting: about what happens on a canvas from the action that imprints the first mark, how the process of creating a scene unfolds, how space takes shape, and how everything within the picture plane is subject to the shifting needs of visual relations such that changes may occur that are as dramatic as the drama they describe. ‘My paintings can seem relatively careless and sloppy at times,’ he says ‘without any consideration of formal pictorial problems.’ And yet, evidence of the process of considering what goes where is everywhere in evidence in the traces of multiple changes which echo in the final work, their shadows trapped in layers of semi-opaque paint as they are built up. These are age-old concerns and values, which are accorded supporting rather than leading roles in contemporary art, here take a starring role.

　　To engage with painting today is challenging. Where once Chinese painters looked to the West for inspiration, against the vibrant, pluralistic scene that exists in China today that need is no longer there. Today, the entire world is struggling to find something new as artists ask not just what is painting, but what is art? Again, in responding to this question, it is Ma Ke’s study of classical Chinese culture, which continues to inspire. ‘I paint slowly and intuitively. I am not focused on one problem. I frequently jump from one point to another. For my generation, the concept of painting has yet to crystallise. I am always asking myself what is painting? What is my painting?’ 19

　　17. 2011年12月马轲访谈。

　　18. 同上。

　　19. 同上。

　　17. Interview with Ma Ke, December 2011.

　　18. Ibid.

　　19. Ibid.