余霞散成绮，澄江静如练
──陈淑霞的心境画境

很多年前，在一本女性艺术家画册中随意看到陈淑霞的一幅画，一个椭圆桌面，只一块灰绿，清雅而淳厚，桌上一个玻璃杯，只几笔锌白，空透而饱满，瓶中斜生出几支花，枝的细线吃进深色背景，花粉白的一团团浮在半空，构成有点像大卫·霍克尼，而气息却更寂静。我当时并不认识陈淑霞，却感受到了这女人心里别有的一份纯净，至今印象很深。

后来看过一些陈淑霞的原作，发现她的画面构成虽简，肌理处理却很细腻，不着笔触已然有了丰富的视觉效果。陈淑霞的山水，通常以两半不同的颜色分割天与水，色彩反差鲜明而色度却相近，大面积采用平涂，纯丽薄透，笼住了整个画面的纯净气息。片山止水，一叶扁舟，形似中国山水，而处理方式却近西方抽象艺术的色块构成。山形与倒影，小舟与倒影，形状几近对称，颜色和肌理不同，形成舒服的视觉对比和变化。我最喜欢画面中一种“云”的处理方式，就是一大片长方形的颜色，薄薄的拖着流淌下来的水痕。

陈淑霞的静物、人物画也是一样，静物的桌面、桌腿、桌上物品的阴阳面、阴影，人物的脸部的不同面，人体的形，都没有透视，是以不同色块和肌理界分的，如果摒弃所谓“静物画”、“人物画”的形制，几乎可看作是虚虚实实的块面和色彩的配比。美国抽象艺术家布莱斯·马登，自称他的作品很受中国书法影响，我们曾经在美国访问他，看他的画面才知道，因为不懂中国字义，他把中国书法当作抽象的结构看。如果我们以此看到陈淑霞对抽象艺术构成原理的运用，就不难理解她近年使用材料的作品，只是这种原理运用的延伸。

而陈淑霞的心境画境，让我想到却是谢眺诗境“余霞散成绮，澄江静如练”。

廖雯 2010-10-13于宋庄

the remaining rosy cloud dispersed into satin and the limpid river was calm as silk

The frame of mind and painting conception of Ms.Chen Shuxia

I viewed Ms. Chen Shuhua’s work many years ago from a female artists painting album. In that painting, an ellipse table top, which was celadon, looks simple and elegant. A glass vase was painted by several simple strokes but looks plump and several gradient flowers in it. The branches of the flowers were immerged into the dark   background and the pink flowers waved in the sky! The style looked as David Hockney but more quiet. I did not know Ms.Chen Shuxia at that moment but could feel the purity from her heart and it made me deep impressed.

I viewed her some original works later and found that in those paintings, the structure was simple but texture was very exquisite, the vision impression could be improved skillfully by few strokes. She often separated the sky and water by different colors in her landscape paintings, apparent color contrast but similar chroma. She used large level coating to show the purity of whole painting. Few hills and quiet water,one skiff, all these elements look like typical Chinese landscape painting ,while the process is close to western abstract painting. The mountain and reflection in water, also the boat and reflection are almost symmetrical in geometry, but different color and texture bring us very comfortable vision contrast and variety. I do like the process which called “cloud” in her paintings, that is large colorful quadrate with flowing water trace.

The same style in her still life and portrait painting, the shade and shadow of desktop, desk leg and objects on desk, different  region on people’s face, shape of human body, all this were distinguished by different colors and texture ,but no perspective. If we forgot the concept of still life or portrait painting, those woks can be regarded as compound of indistinct and distinct blocks and different colors. American abstract artist Brice Marden who we had interviewed in US said that his works was affected by Chinese calligraphy greatly. From his works, we could find that he regarded Chinese calligraphy as abstract structure since he did not understand the meaning of those letter. Ms.Chen Shuxia has also extended Marden’s  way in her recent painting works.

From her mind and painting conception,I remembered the poem of Xie Tiao involuntarily “the remaining rosy cloud dispersed into satin and the limpid river was calm as silk”

By Liao Wen, Oct.13,2010  Songzhuang