Wu Yi

a
When i was a little boy, what i wanted to paint the most was the train. i painted every page of my textbook. after school, i used to go to Changchun railway station and entered it from the western depot.  i often sat silently there for hours, looking at the trains passing by. What a magnificent scene! in the past, Changchun railway station was built by imitating Tokyo railway station of japan, but it was already dismantled more than ten years ago. When i went to Tokyo last autumn, i took a photo in front of the old Tokyo station. i often have a disorientation in time and space when i look at the photos at home.

Later, i began to learn sketching and coloring and gradually forgot about painting the train. When  i was in the senior high school,  i often went to the railway station, sitting and sketching in the waiting room, losing awareness of the trains passing by.

after i was admitted into the fine art academy,  i gradually knew what could be painted and what could not be. naturally, the train was included in the category.

over twenty years have passed away,  i, once again, turn my attention to the train without knowing the reason. My teacher, lu Chen, once finished a painting titled Train Driver in 1960s which has been now regarded as a classical piece. The only pity is that i have never discussed the topic about trains with him for these long years.

When i went to aschaffenurger, Germany, last year, my first painting was the local railway station and the clock on the platform was 0745 am.

While staying in Europe,  i was more interested in the railway stations than museums.  it was simply that there had already been no steam locomotives in those countries. i have bought many models of old-style locomotives, but the most enjoyable one is the model of “shangyou 0540” steam locomotive made by the Chinese.  in China, there are less and less steam locomotives and they have been gradually replaced by the ones which are faster, more environmentally friendly and more convenient.  it is said that the fastest train is the D-type. if the express train takes nine hours, the D-type one needs only six hours. however, the travelers need to take a salt bath when they reach their destination.

B
My mother told me that my uncle often painted the ancient people fighting each other on the horses during his childhood. he even painted heroes such as Zhang Fei and li Kui and even the japanese soldiers in his textbooks. While painting, it seemed that he had been among them. he was murmuring about the winner and the loser again and again. i cannot clearly recall whether  i was murmuring about the images or not when  i painted the railway guerillas fighting for the grain. What i had in my mind was that the train was not fast and the coaches were a little bit tilted when turning at a corner. some of the guerillas were guards and the others were throwing the grain bags down from the train. There were also some people trying to climb the train. on the ground, people were busying loading the bags onto the wheelbarrows.  it was really a busy scene.  it seemed that there had been no sound and what could be seemingly heard was the clicking sound arising from the joint of the track.

Today, my son is fond of painting the volcano and the like. he grumbles loudly while painting. he usually becomes quite excited when he paints the smoke arising from the volcano and throws the pencil onto the paper or even claps the table hard. he likes my paintings of figures having guns. he likes holding one toy gun and gives me another one. “Daddy, come on! let’s playing the fighting games.”  in the games, he is the soldier and i am the chief of the company.

C
The memory is concerning the past, but it seems that we
may find the shadows of the present and the future. What is
concerned with the memory is also full of imaginations and
in such space, i enjoy the pleasure of expression.