让马去往不存在的青草地（代序）
——关于阿海

        屈指数来，认识阿海有二十多年了。谈论一个熟识的朋友是容易的，但谈论一个熟识的艺术家朋友，其实很难。阿海在朋友圈里几乎是个话题性人物，他的性格与生活充满了各种有趣的冲突，针对他，你所了解的大量生活中的细枝末节，很容易覆盖另一部分真相。另一部分真相与探求有关，属于艺术，恰好是阿海作为艺术家的一份履历，当然也是最值得谈论的。
看阿海这些年来的作品，总是会想起他在南艺美术系做学生时候的模样。他是国画班班长，个头矮小，布满青春痘的面孔上陈列着苍老的表情，表情乍看严峻，脑子里很可能在构思某一个笑话，以供班上的女同学们哗然一笑。他上半身穿肥大的传统灰罩衫，是带点突破的守旧，下身则是新潮青年的装备，裤子下端额外加套一个黑灰条纹的筒袜，我暂且认定那着装灵感得益于新四军战士的绑腿。这个印象琐碎，但对于我谈论阿海是个有益的提示，即使是学生时代，阿海已经提醒过我，他是冲突的爱好者，他是一个以冲突作为基本打扮的人，他既然可以把冲突穿在身上，也可以在他的绘画作品里安放冲突，调解它，或者仅仅描绘它，放任自流。
现在，暂且认定阿海怀里抱着一本字典，词条依然是：冲突。暂且认定他在画室里孜孜诠释的艺术主张，不过是诠释冲突的幻想，如何不费吹灰之力，为冲突穿上衣服，或者脱去衣服。怎么画？画什么？他也许思考了几年，也许仅仅是几分钟。他放弃了研习多年的水墨写意，放弃了人物、茶壶与其他“佩饰”，放弃了流派化的文人画趣味，走向他自己的对立面。他选择了天性的角落，乐观的反面，抒情的侧面。多年来漫不经心的探求，为他意外地获取了一个梦游者的视线，他挽留并且放大了这道视线，以梦界划线圈地，开始寻找他的艺术疆域。
         我们从仿古的宁静内敛的底色里，看见那个透明的躁动的梦游者，他无所不在。2009年的“呐喊”系列，是这个梦游者最具体的写照，他总在水中漂浮，模糊的面孔上，只有眼睛是清晰的，这双清晰的眼睛，以明亮反射绝望，使缥缈的世界暗含垂死或崩溃的意味，而梦游者的旅伴，周围的那些马、鹅与花朵都显得阴郁可疑，怀着秘密的心事。超现实之后，一切都很奇诡，莫名其妙的艳丽，介乎于病态与浪漫之间，暗色的大水和红色的天空引人注目，它们也许对现实生活有所指涉，给梦游者以合法合理的生存依据。梦游者似乎在质问梦境：是你制造了我，还是我制造了你？梦游者甚至爬上了现实的堤岸，并且质问现实：是你制造了梦，还是梦制造了你？
我所认识的阿海，是反对秩序与教条的人，是以有趣或好玩作为真理的人；我不认识的阿海，是那个移梦的阿海。无论是梦的引导，还是现实的暗自牵引，阿海已经刷新了作为创作者的身份，并且获得一件宽松舒适的睡袍，可以边睡边画，而他对梦境的深化与拓展，有效置换了原本相对局促的表现空间，这个空间跨越虚实之间，足以让阿海安放自己的灵魂，以及创作。再说说梦的事。梦虽然不是什么出路，但以梦为马，把所有的冲突放在这匹马的马鞍上，现实也许可以架空，所有的危险都以美好的状态呈现，这已经很好了。说来说去，所有的艺术，都不过是一次次的放牧，让马去往一片不存在的青草地。

To the Nonexistent Grassland, the Horse Goes
About Ahai
SuTong

Counting up the days, I have known Ahai for over twenty years. It is easy to say something about a close friend; however, it is rather hard if this friend happens to be an artist. Ah Hai is quite a phenomenon in our circle because interesting conflicts of various kinds pervade his character and his life. So the rich yet minor details we know about his life often overshadow the other truth about him, or his quest as an artist, which also summarizes his career. That truth, of course, is the most worthy for us to discuss.

Ah Hai’s paintings of these years always remind me of what he looked like as a student of the Fine Arts Department in Nanjing Art Institute. He was the monitor of the Chinese painting class, was short in figure and had a pimpled face that exhibited an aged look. Serious as he seemed to be, he was probably contriving a joke in his mind to please girls in his class with a guffaw. He wore a baggy, gray traditional smock, which smacked of reformed conservatism, but his pants tucked into a pair of stockings of gray and black stripes belonged to the outfit of fashionable youngsters, a vogue probably inspired by the New Fourth Army soldiers’ leg wrappings. This trivial memory reminds me that even in his student years Ah Hai was already a lover of conflict. Just as he dons conflict to state a dressing style, he places conflict into his work either to resolve it or merely present it and let it be.

Now, let’s assume Ah Hai has in his arms a dictionary with the entry “conflict”. Let’s assume the art he pursues assiduously in his studio is nothing but the dream to interpret conflict. How can he cover or expose the conflict without effort ? How should he paint? What should he paint? Over these questions he probably pondered for years, or just a few minutes, before giving up ink painting, which he had studied and practiced for years, along with its figures, teapots and other ornaments as well as its taste of conventionalized literati painting, to move on to the opposite of himself. He chooses the margin of nature, the reverse of optimism, the shadow of lyricism. Years of aimless quest accidentally rewards him with the view of a dream-wanderer, which he retains, enlarges, and applies to the searching for an artistic territory of his own.

In the serene, reserved background of antique style we see the transparent restless dream-wanderer. He is everywhere. The 2009 series named "Cry" provide this dream-wanderer’s most vivid portraits. He is always floating in the water, his face blurred except for the sharp eyes, which reflect despair with brightness and give the dimly discernable world a hint of impending death or collapse. The dream-wanderer’s travel companions, the horses, geese and flowers surrounding him, all appear gloomily suspicious as if harboring secrets of their own. Everything is bizarre and inexplicably gorgeous at once after being surrealized, achieving a tone half morbid and half romantic. The dark waves and the red sky catches our eyes; they may refer to the real world and endow the dream-wanderer with a reason to exist. The dream-wanderer seems to be questioning the dream: “Have you produced me, or have I produced you?” He even climbs up the bank of reality and throws the question in its face: “It is you who have produced the dream, or is it the dream that has produced you?”

The Ah Hai I know is someone against order and dogmas, someone who takes joy or fun for truth. The Ah Hai I do not know is the one who has created the dream-wanderer. Whether guided by dream or secretly by reality, he has already emerged as a different creator and got a comfortable pajama to paint in while sleeping. By deepening and expanding his dreamland, he has successfully moved out of the old, comparatively narrow space of artistic expression, and the new space that connects reality and illusion is large enough for him to put in his soul and creativity. Now let’s talk about dream. Although dream is not a way out, at least we can regard it as a horse and load all the conflicts on its saddle. Reality will then turn into a form and all its dangers will assume a beautiful shape. This is good enough. After all, all that arts can do is nothing but release some dream time and time again. To the nonexistent grassland, the horse goes.