黑格尔说“视觉和对象的关系式用光作媒介产生的一种纯粹认识性的关系，而光是一种非物质性的物质，也让对象保持他的独立自由……对于无欲念的视觉，一切在空间中互相外在或并列的物质性的东西都可以成为对象”，超越物质性的视觉具有想象性，能够激活观者的想象力，产生审美意向，并以此满足心灵情感的需要。视觉能够赋予艺术家们广阔的时空性，将自己的情感传递出来。初见李南凤的作品便感叹于他蕴含在作品中的张力，将视觉特有的感染力展现到了极致。有些扭曲的形体、厚重的笔触、强烈刺激视觉的配色，一切看似毫无规矩可言。这种看似涂鸦的混乱宣泄，就这样赤裸裸的将情绪抛在毫无准备的观者面前。

　　总的来说，李南凤的作品有着一种扭曲、痛苦、野蛮、甚至狰狞的情绪。他寻求的是刺激和震撼，将整个展厅笼罩在作品氛围内的力量。以《迈克尔·杰克逊系列》为例，早在20世纪以前，梵高就意识到，未来的艺术家们不会再画所谓“正确的肖像”。当照相机横空出世，就失去了继续写实的意义。李南凤要的，不再是迈克尔·杰克逊的肖像，而是迈克尔·杰克逊悲欢沉浮一生的缩影。这个缩影有着苍白却发灰的脸孔，海藻一般的头发，嘴角嚼着不知是嘲笑还是傲慢的笑。整个图像看似正常却轻微的扭曲着，充满着商业社会明星文化特色的墨镜不知是在掩盖什么，让人们一瞬间便想起了这名国际巨星辉煌却扭曲，不知该如何去评判的人生。

　　其实在李南凤不同的作品中，总能发现一些西方大师的痕迹，莫奈的森林，马蒂斯的人体或高更的塔西提岛。西方大师的精髓被旅居海外的中国艺术家们吸收融汇然后形成一种令人耳目一新的艺术方式，这本身也可以被认为是一种自发性的艺术实验。这种实验在艺术家融入新的社会环境时天然形成，奇妙之处在于不同的人、不同的国家、不同的境遇、不同的审美习俗，会产生不同的化学反应。艺术的不可预测性给了世界取之不竭的创造力。

　　同样吸收融合西方绘画精髓，海外华人艺术家的艺术风格各有千秋。法籍抽象艺术家赵无极也成功地将东西方艺术相互结合构成了属于自己独特的艺术风格，然而其组合出的效果却与李南凤完全不同。相较李南凤粗狂的运笔和浓烈的色彩，赵无极的作品就显得轻柔，温和得多了。赵无极老师师从林风眠，后又在浪漫之都巴黎继续自己的艺术事业，他的作品也就有沾染上了浓烈的浪漫主义色彩。变幻多端的色彩，无迹可寻的韵味有着独特的东方禅意。反观之，李南凤的“西化”更加的彻底，也更加的直接。着墨于西方现代主义表现形式，最大限度的弱化了“水墨”的中国韵味。和悠扬的法国风情相比，李南凤的作品放弃了精致，呈现出一种神秘的原始主义野性。新西兰的蓝天、白云、阳光、广袤的森林和牧场，四季常青，给了新西兰一种独立于世的原始野性之美。《魔戒》电影中，彼得·杰克逊也选择这里作为霍比特人的世外桃源。独树一帜的原始野性无时无刻影响着那里的人们，耳濡目染的，李南凤的作品带上了新西兰毛利土著的图腾感。新西兰的野性成为了他的本能。凝结画布之上的油彩充满了力量，一笔一划都带着毫不犹豫的大胆与狂野。也正是这样的线条，才能产生令人难以移目的视觉张力。

　　高鹏

　　北京今日美术馆馆长

　　2014.05.20

　　According to Hegel, “the relation between vision and object is a pure cognitive one which results from light serving as a medium; light in itself is an insubstantial substance which allows for an independence and freedom of its object… for desire-excluded vision, anything substantial that exists extrinsically or paralleled in space can be object.” Vision goes beyond materiality is imaginative, capable of stimulating audiences’ imagination, generating aesthetic intention, thus satisfying emotional demands. It can, also, endow artists with vast time and space through which to channel emotions. At first sight of Lee’s works, I have been marveled by the power imbued and the thorough display of infection peculiar to vision. Some distorted forms, heavy strokes and visually stimulating color blending seem to be from works applying no rules, which, though as a disordered graffiti-like catharsis, has casted emotions to unprepared audiences in an exposed manner.

　　In a whole, Lee’s works are stuffed with a distorted, plagued, barbaric and even ferocious emotion. What he looks for is a stimulation and shock, a power sufficing to envelope exhibition hall in the work’s atmosphere. “Michael Jackson Series”, for example, is a case in point. Prior to the early 20th century, Van Gogh has realized that artists in the future will not draw the so-called “right portrait” whose realistic sense has been rendered useless with the born of camera. Reagan Lee pursues not a portrait of Michael Jackson, but his life of ups and downs in a miniature which encompasses a pale grey face, seaweed hair, a ridiculous or contemptuous smile hanging at the mouth corner. The whole image looks normal but is slightly twisted with a pair of classical sunglasses unknown to cover anything whereas typical to stars in commercial society. It reminds people instantly of this super star’s glamorous yet contorted life which is beyond judgment.

　　We can always find in Lee’s works some traces of western maestros, such as Monet's forests, Matisse’s human body or Gauguin’s Tahiti. Drawing on the quintessence of western masters, expatriate Chinese artists have assimilated and digested it into a refreshing art style which is a spontaneous art experiment, a process naturally occurs when artists fit them in a new social environment. What fancy us is that different chemical reactions take place within different people, countries, situations, and aesthetic customs. The unpredictability of art offers the world inexhaustible creativity.

　　Though having absorbed western painting essence, overseas Chinese artists are of different artistic styles. Combining Eastern and Western art, French-Chinese abstract artist Zhao Wuji also successfully develops his own unique artistic style, which is totally different from that of Reagan Lee. Comparing with Lee’s wild brushwork and strong colors, Zhao is much more gentle and moderate. Instructed by Reagan Lee, Zhao Wuji later pursued his art career in Paris, City of Romance, explaining why his work is dyed with a thick romantic color. Changeable colors and untraceable appeal have communicated a unique Oriental zen. In contrast, Reagan Lee is more radically and directly “westernized”, focusing on the western modernism forms, maximally reducing the Chinese appeal of “ink painting”. Compared with the melodious France feelings, Lee’s works abandoned delicacy, presenting a mysterious primitive wildness. The blue sky, white clouds, sunshine, vast forests and pasture and evergreen scenery give New Zealand an original primitive flavor which is independent of the world. In The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson also chooses New Zealand as the Shangri-La of the Hobbits. The original wildness there is nothing in common, influencing anywhere and anytime people live there. Naturally, Lee’s work is carrying with it a felling of totems of the indigenous Mori. The wildness of New Zealand has become his instinct, oil paint coagulating on canvases overflowing power with every stroke and brush soaking an unshaken boldness and wildness. These lines have generated a visual tension which makes it hard for anyone to take his eyes off the work.

　　Gao Peng

　　Beijing Today Art Museum

　　May 20, 2014