Weekend, Where to go 一个爱尔兰男孩的励志故事

 

这是一个爱尔兰小男孩的励志故事。出生于都柏林的肖恩·斯库利被誉为“属于我们这个时代最重要的油画大师之一”,他...



这是一个爱尔兰小男孩的励志故事。



出生于都柏林的肖恩·斯库利被誉为“属于我们这个时代最重要的油画大师之一”,他的抽象画作被超过150个世界顶级博物馆和艺术机构展览永久收藏,包括纽约大都会美术馆、伦敦泰特美术馆、巴黎蓬皮杜艺术中心、纽约现代艺术博物馆。

肖恩的好友、U2主唱Bono称其是 “a bricklayer of the heart (灵魂的瓦工)”。

今年已经71岁的肖恩身材高大,神采奕奕。




当我们坐在南京艺术学院美术馆的咖啡座、聊他在中国的第二次巡展时,我很难将眼前这位浑身充满斗志的画家和曾经的伦敦街头小混混联系在一起。

在6岁的时候,肖恩就知道自己想成为艺术家。但贫寒的生活环境使得他在15岁就早早进入社会、成为印刷厂的学徒。

肖恩的父母在他4岁的时候从都柏林来到伦敦。肖恩的父亲在二战期间曾经是战斗机飞行员,到了伦敦成为提供上门服务的理发师,母亲是一名歌手。





肖恩是如此回忆自己的青少年时期:

"We were extremely poor. We had no house, no food, we had nothing.

"My parents had a lot of trouble. My family was always on the edge of violence. It was unbelievably stressful. There wasn't a moment of relaxation in my entire childhood.

"I wanted to be an artists when I was about six. Then I got knocked off the track by the working-class educational system and the environment I was living in. I became a street gang member and a fighter.

"Being a teenager with vivid imagination, a strong sense of venture and some degree of courage, it was attractive to steal cars and drive them away, and get chased by the police."





对于绘画的喜爱最终将肖恩从街头混战中拯救出来,工作之余他在夜校学习绘画的技巧。

在进入Croydon College of Art接受正规训练之前,他被伦敦的11所艺术学校拒绝。

"When I was not accepted (every time), I cried a lot. (At Croydon College of Art,) I was in paradise. I wanted more than the life itself.

"... I felt that my life had been saved. I worked with an intensity that other students found scary, (and it scared) me too."







肖恩的艺术之路由此开启,但技巧和能力并不意味着每一位艺术院校的毕业生都能最终来到金字塔顶端。

肖恩在70年代来到纽约——当时世界新的艺术中心,但他发现自己的风格并不被接受。

"I went through a long period in my life where my works were not accepted.

"The only time I almost considered giving up was one morning, about 3 am. I had an exhibition in New York, I could sell none of my works. I could not afford to live. I was so defeated.

"I thought maybe I should go somewhere in middle of America and become a professor, have a car and a house with a garage. That last about an hour, but it was such a stressful experience."







爱尔兰人血液中的不服输和对艺术坚定的信念帮助他扛了下来。

当然,还有常年的拳击和空手道训练——肖恩本人是空手道黑带——打造出的运动员般的意志。

肖恩的第一个儿子在18岁的时候车祸身亡,肖恩说他因此沉郁了35年。

他在60多岁时迎来第二个孩子Oisin。

"You are trying in a sense to imitate God because you're trying to be creative.

"I can't make anything better than Oisin. That is my greatest creation.”









肖恩作品具有标志性的色彩鲜艳的棋盘、格子和条纹图案。

虽然被称为抽象艺术家,肖恩说他画的其实都是自己看到的风景:内华达州的沙漠、家乡爱尔兰的民居、从小生活的伦敦南部社区,和德国工作室外的丛山峻岭。

因此他认为观众其实很好理解他的作品。

"What I'm doing is to build up a surface of blocks and units that have a lit-up quality, and audiences can feel a lot of stuff coming through from the back.

"Painting doesn't explain itself. Painting is not an explanation. Painting doesn't try to teach. Painting is a body of experiences.

"Painting is what Turner called a 'rum (hard)' business. One has to have unshakable beliefs. And I do."







肖恩对于艺术和创作有这样一段话,想送给所有还在为梦想努力的你们:

"One has to have resistance to be an artist because one has got to resist all the insults one has to suffer as an artist.

"Now I'm famous, but before one is famous, one has to be infamous, and before one is accepted, one has be rejected.

"So one has to persist, in other words, to have a little hope."

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEAN SCULLY, and show paintings displayed at Scully's China debut show, Follow the Heart, in Beijing last year, and at his second China show, Resistance and Persistence, now at the Art Museum of Nanjing University of Art, until May 8.

It will tour to Guangzhou in September and Wuhan in January, 2017.

Lin Qi 自出道起专注特稿写作10余年,担任艺术报道是这两年的事。周一到周五去高大上的博物馆跑活儿,周末在798/草场地/黑桥出没。

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