刘曼文的性格成分是一种很有意思的组合。我想这可能跟她自己的经历，或者跟超乎她自身之外的父母的经历有关系。实际上，我在以这种方式开头来写关于她的作品的评论的时候，已经深深地感受到了一种“宿命”式的人生意义。

　　刘曼文的父母都是南方人，因为命运的安排，他们却远在东北工作、生活。所以她的出生、成长不可避免地要同时面临着来自血缘遗传中的南方的婉约和作为生存环境中北方的粗粝的双重影响。这样的双重影响在每一个具体的个体身上表现的并不是同样的结果，但是，在刘曼文的身上，这样两种截然不同的性格因素却是同样的突出，各自鲜明而又独立地表现在她的性格当中。这种“鲜明”的对立的结果便是，她不但常常要面对源自自身内心的压力和拷问，同时还要承受这种压力和拷问的宿命式的“无意义”的结果。

　　遮挡的体验

　　“面膜”系列是刘曼文成名的系列绘画作品。这种画面因素的选择非常符合她作为一个女性艺术家的身份特征。在女性艺术研究者眼中，艺术家这种描绘形象的方式是女性的性别特征、生活方式以及社会身份联系在一起的。但是我更加看重的是，刘曼文之所以用这样一种形象描绘的方式来表现自己和她的家人，与她的性格中的那些对立冲突的因素有没有一种内在的联系?

　　众所周知，面膜的使用功能仅仅是女性为了面部美容而使用的一种材料特点，它的物理属性应该对人的面部皮肤起到一种理疗的作用。但是由于这种东西覆盖在人的面部之后，在视觉上所引起的奇怪的心理体验，被覆盖者在观看者的眼中往往被扭曲成“恐怖”、“受到伤害”的形象，或者是“面具”式的对自己内心世界的遮挡。在她早期的创作中这种方式仅仅是用来描绘她自己的形象，其中女性主义的意味是不言而喻的。但是，当她用同样的方式来描绘自己的家人的时候，并且把自己的面部形象提炼、强化，并置在一起以后，其中“性别”的特殊性便变得不再重要了。

　　我们可以把这种方式引申为对自己家族、血缘系谱的困惑和拷问。各个家庭成员的脸部被覆盖上白色的面膜之后，模糊了各自的形象特征，于是维系家庭的关系也变得漂浮起来，并且因为面膜对形象的“陌生化”所带来的距离感隐约让观众感受到了这背后的某种危机。

　　如果我们把这种解读后的感受与刘曼文试图传达出来的宿命式的人生意义结合起来，便能强烈感受到一种生命的个体在命运面前的无奈和苍凉。

　　面膜还有一种遮挡住事物本来面貌的效果。因为这种“遮挡”，带来了某种“交流”的缺失，或者心理状态的“两面性”。另外，它还可以因为遮挡了某些细微的表情变化，从而使它要遮挡的一面反而更加凸现出来。画面中各个人物表现出来的乖戾、惊恐、无奈等心理变化与画面中间作者作为一个社会性的角色而出现的形象之间形成了某种微妙的对应和补充。所以，遮挡的结果正是应了一句成语“欲盖弥彰”。

　　“捆绑”的意念

　　关于“捆绑”的意念，在很多女性艺术家的作品中都出现过。这种捆绑所带来的外物缠绕的心理体验，与我们在未脱离母体前，脐带缠绕在我们的身体周围，并给我们的潜意识中留存的心理印记是相似的。在我们的生命还没有独立存在之前，脐带是我们与母体之间保持生命维系的唯一通道。在我们赤身露体接触母体的子宫内壁的同时，脐带缠绕的感觉还能给我们一些与“服装”、“房屋”等概念给我们的身体所带来的接触体验相类似。但是脐带的缠绕也能给未出生的生命带来巨大的威胁。所以，带状物的缠绕在我们的生命记忆中一直便有着两种截然不同的体验。它在保护我们，给我们脆弱的躯体带来温暖的同时，也会有着某种危险的暗示。

　　这种意念在刘曼文的画面中通过她把自己的身体用纱带缠绕、捆绑起来的形象传递出来后，我们再将之与上一个章节中的分析结合起来，便会对她的潜在的表达有一个比较明晰的解读。

　　这种意念，我们首先把它归结为她内心的那种来自于宿命式的悲悯的压抑，它源自生命的漂浮和游离。在漆黑一片的画面背景中，我们发现不到任何的依托和参照，只有生命孤独地“存在”的现状。这种生命的荒诞意味，与刘曼文所必须要面对的在她的个体之外的关于命运的宿命式的安排有着某种冥冥的暗合。所以，我们可以看到，在寂寥的时空背景中，作者紧紧依偎着的只能是纠缠在她的身体周围的那些意义不明的带状织物。她紧紧抓住它，似乎它们是她内心的盔甲，但是，显然，它们又是柔软和脆弱的。画面中，生命的悲剧意义似乎能由此而产生。

　　与此同时，这些满身遍体的带状织物恰恰又限制、压抑着鲜活的个体生命。它们原本柔弱、温暖的质感，在作者的画面处理下，通过概括的形体处理与粗粝的质感的强调，在视觉效果中变得僵直和坚硬起来。至此，我们似乎能明了这个意象相对于作者来说，它仅仅只是为了维系某种“生命”的形式，而并不能容忍生命的自由生长与蔓延。

　　“网”上的构成

　　以上两个章节中的形象被组合在一个新的作品中，它们在构成新的关系的同时，还加入一些新的画面因素。我们注意到，在画面左半部的三幅头像实际上来自三张另外的全身的画面。在从这三张作品中移植了三个面部表情之后，作者强化了其中的乖戾、惊恐、无奈的情绪，与此相对应的是，在画面的右半部，作者还安排了三个人物主题在相隔两年之后另外的时间段中的形象。这些关系构成了作者身为一个女性在家庭中的角色的生存体验。在第一章节中，我们分析的危机变成了现实，任意的面部形象勾织在一个网状结构中，似乎是作者在暗示着某种宿命式的命运。

　　在画面的中部，作者还安排了一组与自己的身体体验相关的象征性的形象和符号。手的形象是借用一种美化润肤用的“蜡”的形象来表达的，脚的旁边标注了一些与皮肤的过敏性反应相关的名词：“按摩”、“气泡”、“过敏”等。这些都是暗示了一种与作者的身体体验相关的生存体验方式。

　　所以，在这个网状的结构中，刘曼文实际上把三种与自己的女性身份体验相关的因素组织起来——身体体验、家庭体验以及社会体验。

　　如前所述，在刘曼文的性格中，既有南方女性的精致，也有北方女性的豪放。这些所谓“精致”的一面，可以在她的这些与身体有关的物品中有所体现。但是，更深一层的寓意是，它们作为作者生命意义追问的载体，完成了由身体，进而家庭、社会的圆周，并在最后把这种生命的循环归结到宿命式的预设中。这是刘曼文的性格中具有悲剧性体验的一面。就像画面中提示的那样，“我的左手”是起点，“我的右手”是终点，所谓的翻手为云，覆手为雨，在命运的安排中，有时起点和终点会是那样惊人的相似。而在她的生存体验中，来自自身之外的命运的一次偶尔的际遇，却决定了一个具体的生命的生活周围，而被分割在画面两边的不同时间段的生命体验，只不过是这个圆周中的一段弧线而已。

　　“门”的意象

　　“门”是一个世界与另一个世界“沟通”、“交流”的通道，同时，也是追寻未知世界的起点。

　　在刘曼文俄罗斯考察期间，以门的形象为主体的一系列作品中，我们可以看到传统画论中所谓的“咏物言志”的写意性特征在她这组作品中的体现。作者通过透视感的加强和质感的夸张，加重了作为表现对象“墙”的厚重感的表现。这些都使观者在面对这些厚墙的时候，自然产生了压抑和堵塞的感觉体验。而在这其中，打破这种压抑与堵塞的只有在画面被描绘得很小的，像过道一样幽深的门。这引起了我们对于通透与交流的视觉要求。但是，在这些门与墙的画面中，有些门却是关闭与堵塞的。在这里，画面的形象实际上是作者作为一位有着丰富而敏感的内心体验的女性艺术家，把自己内心的生存体验外在物象化的结果。联系到作者在同时期创作的，我们在“遮挡的体验”、“‘网’的构成”两个章节中分析过的作品来看，这里的“门”与“墙”的关系就是作者在命运的际遇中，“遮挡”与“捆绑”自己的内心世界，而实际上又渴望交流、沟通的心理写照。

　　我们的这种解读还可以通过作者下意识中，通过笔触的迟疑、徘徊，以及颜料在画布上流淌所形成的肌理效果，更加体验到作者内心的无奈。

　　在选择表现对象的时候，也许仅仅是一种偶然，但是，在这种偶然受到来自内心下意识的驱动的时候，实际上这其中就包含了某种必然。

　　结语

　　有着丰富的人生体验，对于艺术家来说是一种福分，它可以使艺术家的创作避免肤浅和人云亦云，但是这种体验往往又是以个体生命的磨炼为代价的。细微、敏感的心理感受是艺术家的作品感动观者的心理基础，但是，敏感的内心世界又会使艺术家时常面临着超乎常人的来自内心的困惑。刘曼文在用画面形象传递自己的内心世界的同时，也用它来平衡自己内心的困惑，虽然她常常又把这些归结到一种宿命式的伤感，但是，我们毕竟能通过她的画面来与她的内心进行着某种程度的对话与交流。这实际上是一位优秀的艺术家应该在作品中具备的素质。

　　2004年6月于北京

　　Wu Hong

　　The components of Liu Manwen’s character are integrated in a very interesting way. I suppose this is probably concerned with her own experiences, or with her parents’ experiences beyond herself. Actually, when starting this critique about her works in this way, I have already deeply felt a “fateful” significance of life.

　　Both of Liu’s parents are southerners, however they lived and worked in Northeast China because of the fate’s arrangement. Therefore, her birth and growth inevitably faced the double influences of the southern gracefulness from her genetic inheritance and the northern toughness as the environment of existence. Such double influences would not produce the same result in each individual, however, such two completely different elements of character are the same prominent in Liu’s case, distinctively and independently appearing in her character. The result of such a “distinctive” contrast is: she not only often faces the pressure and torture coming from the inner world, but also endures the fateful “meaningless” result of the pressure and torture.

　　Experiences of Sheltering

　　The series of Facial Mask is Liu’s first well-known series of works. The selection of painting’s elements highly suits her identity as a woman artist. In the eyes of researchers on women’s art, an artist’s way of depicting images is connected with woman’s sex characteristics, life style and social identity. Nevertheless, I pay more attention to this problem – is there any inner connection between Liu’s way of depicting images and those conflicting and contrasting elements in her temperament?

　　As we all know, facial mask is only a material used for women’s facial beauty-care, and its physical quality is supposed to have a therapeutic function. However, when this thing covers a person’s face, it would cause peculiar psychological experience – the covered person would be distorted into the image of being “horrible” and “harmed” in the audience’s eyes, or the “mask-styled” concealment of the person’s own inner world. In her early creation, this means was only used to depict her own image, and the feministic significance was obvious. Nevertheless, when she applied the same means to depict her family members and refined and strengthened her facial features to be put together, the specialty of sexual distinction was not important any more.

　　We could extend the implication of the means into confusion and torture about her own family, consanguinity and family tree. The face of each family member is covered with white facial mask to blur each one’s imagic features, therefore, the relation maintaining the family also becomes dimly discernible, and makes the audience to indistinctly feel a certain hidden crisis because of the distance brought by the images alienated by the masks.

　　If we combine this feeling after interpretation with the fateful significance of life that Liu tries to deliver, we could strongly feel a living individual’s helplessness and desolation in front of destiny.

　　Facial mask also has an effect of concealing the object’s original appearance, because this “concealment” brings the absence of certain “communication”, or the “duality” of psychological status. Besides, it also accentuates the concealed side because it covers some subtle changes in expression. A certain delicate correspondence and complementation form between the psychological changes expressed by the figures in the picture, such as surliness, horror, helplessness, and etc, and the artist’s image appearing as a social role. Hence, the result of concealment proves a saying, “Try to conceal a mistake, only to make it more conspicuous.”

　　Idea of “Bondage”

　　About the idea of “bondage”, it has appeared in many women artists’ works. This psychological experience of being enwound brought by this bondage is similar to the psychological impression existing in our sub-consciousness of being enwound by umbilical cord around us before getting out of mother’s womb. Before our lives becoming independent existence, umbilical cord is the only passage between the mother’s body and us to maintain life. We nakedly feel the womb’s inside in the mother’s body, meanwhile the feeling of being enwound by umbilical cord would remind us of the similar contact experiences concerned with the concepts of “clothes”, “house”, and etc. However, umbilical cord could also bring a great threat to the unborn life. Therefore, being enwound by band-shaped object is an experience of two completely different connotations existing in our memories from the very beginning. It protects us and brings warmth to our fragile bodies, but meanwhile implies a certain danger.

　　After this imagery is delivered through her image wrapped and bound by gauze in Liu’s painting, we combine it with the analysis in the previous chapter, and then would have a comparatively clear interpretation about her potential expression.

　　Firstly, we ascribe this imagery to her inner sorrow, pity and depression like predestination. It originated from the drifting and disassociation of life. In the pitch-black background of the picture, we couldn’t find any dependence or reference, only the present status of life’s lonely “existence”. The absurd significance of life mysteriously corresponds to the predestined arrangement about fate that Liu has to be confronted with outside her individual. Thus, we may discern, in the lonely background of time and space, the artist could only lean close to the ambiguous band-shaped fabric wrapping around her body. She grasps it tightly, as if it’s the armor for her heart, however, it’s obviously soft and fragile. In the picture, the tragic significance of life also seems to emerge from it.

　　Simultaneously the band-shaped fabric also limits and depresses the living individuals. With the artist’s disposition, the formerly soft and warm texture seems to be rigid and hard in visual effect through the general treatment of shape and the emphasis of tough texture. Now, we seem to understand, for the artist, this imagery is only to maintain a certain form of “life”, and couldn’t tolerate the life’s free growth and extension.

　　The “Reticular” Composition

　　The images mentioned in the last two chapters are integrated into a new piece of work. Constituting the new relation, they also add some new elements into the picture. We could notice, the three head portraits in the left side actually come from other three full-length portraits. Transplanting three facial expressions from these three pieces of works, the artist strengthens the feelings of surliness, horror and helplessness; corresponding to this in the right side, the artist also arranges the images of these three figures after two years in another period. These relations constitute the artist’s experiences of existence in a family as a woman’s role. In the first chapter, the crisis in our analysis becomes reality, and the random facial features are interwoven inside a reticular structure, as if the artist implies a certain predestined fate.

　　In the center of the picture, the artist also arranges a series of symbolic images and signs concerned with the experiences of her own body. The image of hands is represented through the image of a sort of “wax” for beautifying and moistening skin. Some words related to skin anaphylaxis are marked beside the feet, such as “massage”, “blister”, “anaphylaxis”, and etc. All these imply a way of living experiences connected with the artist’s body experiences.

　　Therefore, in this reticular structure, Liu actually integrates three elements concerned with the experiences of woman’s identity, that is, body experiences, family experiences and social experiences.

　　Accordingly, there are both the exquisiteness of southern women and the forthrightness of northern women in Liu’s character. The side of so-called “exquisiteness” could be somewhat reflected in these works related to body. However, the further significance is: as the carrier of the artist’s inquiry about life’s significance, they finish the cycle from body to family and eventually to society, and ascribe the cycle of life to the predestination-like pre-setting at the end. This is one side of tragic experiences in Liu’s character. Just as the cue appearing in the picture, “my left hand” is the starting point, and “my right hand” is the end point. There is a saying, “Turning his hand palm up he gathers the clouds, turning his hand palm down he turns them to rain.” In the fateful arrangement, sometimes the starting point and the end point are surprisingly similar. And in her experiences of existence, an occasional fateful opportunity from outside determined the circumstances of a specific life, and the experiences of life in different periods divided into the two sides in the picture is just a small curve in the whole circle.

　　The Imagery of “Door”

　　“Door” is a passage of “communication” and “exchange” between one world and the other one, meanwhile is also the starting point to pursue the unknown world.

　　During Liu’s study tour in Russia, she created a series on the theme of door, and we may discern the representation of impressionistic characteristics of “eulogizing an object to express feelings” from traditional painting theories in this series of works. Through the emphasis of perspective and the exaggeration of texture, the artist strengthened the embodiment of heaviness of the “wall” as the object of representation. All these make the audience naturally feel depression and restraint when facing these thick walls. Among these, the only thing breaking the depression and restraint is the deep and serene door looking like a passage and occupying a small proportion in the picture, which arouses our visual request for penetration and communication. However, in the picture of doors and walls, some doors are closed and blocked. Here, the images are the materialized result of the artist’s inner experiences of existence as a woman artist with profuse and sensitive inner experiences. Associating them with the works created in the same phase and mentioned in the first and second chapters, we find out that the relation between “door” and “wall” is the psychological depiction of “concealing” and “binding” her inner world and actually yearning for exchange and communication during her course of fate.

　　Through the brushstrokes’ hesitation caused by the artist’s sub-consciousness and the effect of oil paint’s flowing texture on canvas, our interpretation could more reflect her inner helplessness.

　　Choosing the object of representation is probably an occasional choice, however, when this occasionality is driven by sub-consciousness, this actually contains certain inevitability.

　　Conclusion

　　Profuse experiences of life are a certain good fortune for an artist, as it could make the artist’s creation avoid superficialness and repetition, nevertheless, this sort of experiences are usually obtained at the price of individual’s excruciation. The subtle and sensitive psychological world makes artists often face the extraordinary confusion from inside. When applying the images in the paintings to deliver her inner world, she also uses it to balance her inner confusion. Though she usually ascribes them to another sort of predestined melancholy, we could communicate and converse with her inner world through her paintings to a certain extent after all. This is actually the quality that an outstanding artist should possess in his/her works.

　　Written in June, 2005