www.dionlaurent.com
Hello to you at Field of Vision,
Here are some paintings from my trip to China in 1993,
and the essay below.
I visited China in 1993, landing in Guilin from Hong Kong.
I was disappointed by the "city feel" of Guilin
yet inspired by that same industrial/city atmosphere to
paint a gas pump. I asked around and quickly settled on
heading south to Yangshuo. Yuangshuo at the time was more
ideally the environment I came to China for, so I settled
in a hotel for a few weeks and started exploring around
what was then a beautiful and cozy little town in a pleasant
rural river valley region. It was much colder than I had
considered, so I bought a military surplus coat and cap
in Guilin as they were the most effective looking clothes
to wear while painting plein-air in the cold damp. Early
on, it rained cold for a few days, so I holed up in my
poorly heated room in Yuangshuo and painted a self portait
in my new military clothes. When it cleared several days
later, I took a few trips up the Li River a good several
kilometers by boat to scout out a place to paint and was
dropped off a few days later and started painting a scene
of the river and the beautiful camel back mountains. Every
day as I walked to and from the river on my painting journey,
I saw an old man as old as ever I'd seen, convincingly
so, and his eyes were blue from age, it seemed, yet he
appeared to see everything. I swear his eyes were clear
as day and blue as fresh river water, and he saw everything
and everyone. Each time I saw him, he was sitting on a
crate in front of his little one room home with its dark
dirt floor, or he was standing inside in the dark, looking
out. The first time I sam him we made eye contact and
he offered me a tangerine and would not accept money.
I bought a few tangerines from him every day the rest
of my stay. While painting along the river in a rather
isolated place with no building or telephone or electric
line in sight, no sounds but the trickles and splashes
along the shore of the rocky beach upon where I sat painting,
two young men emerged quietly and surprisingly from the
bamboo forest behind me. They appraoched, stood back at
a distance and smiled as they watched me paint a bit.
Just after I departed alone with the the captain of the
gas powered canoe that morning, I realized I had forgotten
to get beer for the day. When I took a break from painting,
one of these young men motioned to my sketch book. He
deftly whipped out a quick study of a flowing karate character.
I drew a beer, I believe it was Tsing Tao and said "tsing
tao" out loud and shrugged my shoulders. After paying
for the boat ride up the river that morning, I had only
the 100 yuan which I planned to change when I bought the
beer that I forgot that morning. After a bit of back and
forth drawing and gestures and smiles, I pulled out mu
100 yuan and they agreed to take it and bring back two
big bottles of beer within less than an hour or so. After
an hour and a half, I thought I would never see them,
two well desired cold beers, nor my 100 yuan. Another
hour later or so, and here they came smiling as two kids
with candy. They would not accept a beer, a sip, a tip,
no money, not my tangerines. They wanted and I gave them
a few nice drawing pens and pencils, They stayed a bit
longer and left as quietly and quickly as they had first
appeared. I finished the painting of the river, and now
was still desperately in search of a bull dozer. Where
earth was being moved in this part of China, it was all
by the hands of hard working farmers and the brute power
of the few visible water buffalo and ox. In all my travels
and in each country that I visit, I paint a triptych of
a bull dozer, a gas pump, and a landscape. This is my
Travel Series. But here in China, I had not seen one bulldozer
or backhoe or any such machine. I had given up with disappointment
that I could not find a bulldozer to paint and boarded
the bus to Guilin. This is always the ride of contemplating
the experience of travel and adventure to this place with
these people and experiencing the last views of the landscape
and the people flashing by. Wow! Suddenly there it was
as the bus bumped along to the airport, a beautiful old
red bulldozer at work moving big piles of red earth. I
could't believe that in these few weeks this beautiful
red dozer was just several kilometers from Yuangshuo.
When I arrived at the airport I emotionally pleaded to
change my unchangeable return ticket. After a good half
hour or so, I was allowed to change my ticket for another
week at no charge. I returned to the hotel and planned
for painting the red bull dozer. The next day I took a
motorcycle taxi in the cold drizzle to the dozer. It was
in fact moving and mixing red clay and charcoal at a brick
factory. I can hardly describe how physical the work appeared,
how deep the wear and tear and exhaustion on the workers
hung heavy in their very soul. I started painting as the
dozer crawled as heavy as the men, back and forth, back
and forth, heavy. I struggle for a few hours, wiped my
canvas clean, and left. I returned the next day, still
cold but clear, and painted my Red China Bull Dozer. These
are the four images I am submitting to you with this email.
I will send more images soon.
Xie xie, and Cheers,
Dion
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