Sun Wenjia: The Grandeur and Smallness Beyond Lacquer|To Pu
Original Liu Chongzi to Pu 2023-03-28 13:43 Fujian
On 19 February this year, Sun Wenjia's solo exhibition 'Everything Returns to Rest' opened in Beijing. Amidst the flood of feedback over the following weeks, some saw the evolution of time, some felt the universe and the future…… The discussion of his work in the field of contemporary art has also undergone new changes — 'not limited to lacquer'
Sun Wenjia
Contemporary artist
Born in 1986 in Zhouning, Fujian
Graduated from the College of Fine Arts of Fujian Normal University
01
More important than lacquer
Getting off the car and looking towards Sun Wenjia's studio, I noticed that an item from his M series was lying on the greenery in front of the door. It was coated in lacquer, appearing as if it were freely floating in water. Later, standing on the second floor and looking out through the floor-to-ceiling window, Sun Wenjia said: "Take it out to dry, its colour changed in less than half
an hour just now, and it will change again after a while." The intimacy in his tone was as if he were talking about an old friend.
Sun Wenjia Studio, 3rd Floor Photography/Cheng Shida
Sun Wenjia already has a lacquer label attached to her. She studied oil painting in her undergraduate studies and specialised in lacquer in her postgraduate studies. Since 2019, she has brought her lacquer artworks into the public eye. From the work '0.15 Cubic Wind' of that year to 'Splendid Chapter', and then
creating the object performance series starting with 'Object Performance M01', even to a performance art piece 'Minjiang Drift', she now has a solo exhibition 'Return of All Things' taking place in Beijing...
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0.15 Cubic of Wind
Lacquer Painting 'Chapter of Colour'
The 'Evolution of Things' series
Derivative series of works
Along the way, Sun Wenjia's steps seem a little "formidable". He continuously expands the creative boundaries of lacquer art, integrating
contemporary abstract art with Eastern materials, creating a broader vision. As Mr He Guiyan, director of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Art Museum, said: 'I believe it is precisely because of these young artists' attempts and bold promotion that our understanding and comprehension of lacquer has been elevated from a technical, manual, and aesthetic level to a new dimension, to a cultural level, and to a participatory art level. This depends on the attitude with which we approach the artist's creative world.'
This recalls how, in Sun Wenjia's simply furnished, spacious and airy studio, he did not reserve the
most prominent position at the entrance for his lacquer art, but for an animal fossil.
The 'skeleton' of time
Walk up the stairs to the second-floor living room and tea room, including the third-floor personal work area. In this clean-lined white house, animal skeletal fossils can be seen everywhere, some sealed with lacquer, some repaired with lacquer, or kept in their original state…
Studio second floor Photography/Cheng Shida
As soon as we got back to the tea room and settled down, when discussing this topic, Sun Wenjia revealed the answer: "I usually really enjoy collecting fossils; they are very important traces of life. Everything leaves marks in fossils during the process of falling or declining."
As he spoke, he opened his phone to show the 'Regrowth' series from the solo exhibition 'Everything Returns to Rest', which included a piece featuring an ancient horse head fossil restored with traditional lacquer, alongside more modern fossils for contrast. Through this comparison, one can see that after centuries of evolution, they only differ slightly in their dentition. Yet, even so, it evokes reflections on their respective living conditions at the time, the historical context, their positions in human society, and how they differ from today. It captures a fascinating passage of history.
For Sun Wenjia, lacquer and fossils are keys that open the door of time; their ability to preserve and record time fascinates him. Thus, the answer becomes evident — preservation, recording, and resisting time are also of interest to Sun Wenjia, permeating each of his attempts and experiments, becoming the core of his creation.
Studio second floor workbench photography/Cheng Shida
In terms of 'resistance to time', lacquer is undoubtedly the best medium of expression. Its earliest discovery and use by humans can be traced back 8,000 years, with the 'lacquered bow' unearthed at Kuahuqiao in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, which updated the record of the Hemudu culture. Throughout the long history of China, traces of lacquer can be found everywhere, dotting history like stars and converging into the galaxy of human civilisation. Sun Wenjia described it as: 'Preserving the shape of time, similar to bones.'
The grandeur of time
Viewing the passage of time from the perspective of an observer, Sun Wenjia came up with an intriguing concept: "Darwin's 'Theory of Evolution' should be more accurately translated as 'Theory of Evolutionary Development'; everything progresses through evolution." This became the origin of his "Evolution of Things" series, also summarised as a "Time Capsule." The series served as Sun Wenjia's gateway into contemporary art, and he gained significant recognition with his performance piece, "M02: Drift Along the Minjiang River." This act of performance art was a reflection on his own questions of "Where do I come from?" and "How did I come to be?" Born in Zhouning, Fujian, amidst mountains and seas, his homeland provided him not just the "lacquer impressions" but a nurturing ground for the development of a complete individual and a community. In Fujian, all sources begin with the Minjiang River. The drifting journey of his work starts from the source of the Minjiang River in Junkou Town, Jianning, Sanming, Fujian. Sun Wenjia fitted a tracker in the piece, following M02 across four regions, over a period of 45 days, covering a total of 577 kilometres: "Travelling along this river, perhaps everything changes, but the river remains the same; this sense of history can pull oneself back to the past."
This process is illustrated by countless examples of how time has shaped the Min River, such as the lumberjack couple mentioned repeatedly. They met in Yanping, both surprised that the other had come from Fuzhou. Three or four decades ago, timber in Fuzhou was transported down the Min River from northern Fujian. Many people from Fuzhou came here to make a living by logging. 'At that time, timber was nailed onto rafts, with a small house built on top, and the family name plaques hung in front; everyone drifted downstream conducting transactions.' Unfortunately, the subsequent construction of hydroelectric stations blocked this waterway and disrupted livelihoods. Yet many people had already put down roots, and their hometowns became places they could never return to. When the abstract concept of time meets specific people and events, everything becomes vivid and tangible. This is what makes Sun Wenjia's works so moving; they awaken history and memory, reflecting the present. What is even more touching is the grandeur of time in the rivers themselves. Those unfamiliar with the source of the Min River may hardly imagine that the surging waters that converge into the sea downstream originate from a barely noticeable spring in the grass.
This feeling is so extraordinary that it makes you reflect on how tiny humanity is within the span of nearly ten thousand years, amidst the evolution and nurturing of great rivers.
The insignificance of humans
Sun Wenjia's anxiety about time originates from such a sense of "smallness". It was a gradual awakening process. In the years after graduating from university and starting his own business, he gradually realised the importance of "meaning" in life. As written in the book The Time Paradox: "The question of time is essentially a question about the meaning of life." It was also like that afternoon bathed in soft sunlight, with flowing music in the
background, where he always spoke in a calm tone: "As time passes, it is very difficult for us to leave our mark. Especially in today's post-industrial era, we merely exist as a set of data, which can even be easily erased or formatted. Therefore, as an individual and a creator, I feel anxious and want to record my own feelings."
When a person becomes aware of the vastness of time, they place themselves in a humble position, just as in the face of the grandeur of nature, we often feel very small. Interestingly, this position also gives Sun Wenjia a perspective to see 'greatness'. As Lin Yutang said: 'To be often in the company of the greatness of nature can truly allow one's mind to gradually become great.' In Sun Wenjia's world, he has his own expansive 'universe'. He would mention the 'law of entropy': 'Beyond our universe, there may exist another universe, whose form we cannot know. But if it does not exist, without an external universe inputting energy into ours, the ultimate fate of the universe is to descend into complete disorder, silence and death.'
He has an extraordinary closeness with nature. Having grown up among the mountains, he can hear the sound of bamboo shoots breaking through the soil in the bamboo groves of his hometown; in everyday life, he enjoys sitting on nearby wild beaches untouched by humans. He remembers that after the rain, many little red crabs appear on the beach, and human disturbance makes them scatter immediately. At that moment, he thinks, 'If there were no human interference, what would this place evolve into in the future?'
All these experiences condense into feelings, flowing into each piece of work. They are grand and vast, allowing people to feel how "insignificant" they are, and then realise that the trivialities of the mundane world seem to become unimportant and are slowly healed. Just like in the interval of an interview, when
mentioning his well-known exhibition "Time Capsule", Sun Wenjia recalled an interesting detail: "There was an aunt who was originally in a bad mood, wandering outside and casually walked into this exhibition where she stayed for a long time. She said it eased her mood significantly. The next day, she brought along a group of her sisters and acted as a guide to explain it to them herself. This was very amusing."
"Time Capsule" Live
But at that moment what I remembered was: just as Sun Wenjia finished speaking, a gust of wind suddenly blew in from the window behind him,
ruffling his hair and making the shutters clatter loudly. At that time, I felt that this gentle young artist before me was a bit like that gust of wind, both proving that they had been there in their own way.