By Tracie Barrett

在北京的愛(ài)爾蘭藝術(shù)家

Irish Artist in Beijing

By Tracie Barrett

愛(ài)爾蘭藝術(shù)家尼亞芙·坎寧安以編織和繪畫(huà)的方式，把她的私人物品和周遭事物都融入進(jìn)了她的藝術(shù)作品里。

走進(jìn)尼亞芙·坎寧安位于北京的公寓，首先映入眼簾的是那滿(mǎn)墻的油畫(huà)。進(jìn)一步研究便會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些畫(huà)風(fēng)格各異，主題豐富，不管遠(yuǎn)觀還是近看都讓人印象深刻——由深紅和黑色輪廓構(gòu)成的是以地鐵為主題的一組油畫(huà)，一幅巨大的山景圖上用厚涂顏料繪出了崎嶇的峭壁，還有一幅幅肖像畫(huà)的線(xiàn)條柔和得就像快融化了一樣，這些肖像畫(huà)的靈感來(lái)自中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)家張德龍的作品。

不過(guò)，這位出生在都柏林的藝術(shù)家的創(chuàng)作并不局限于油畫(huà)。走進(jìn)她的工作室或登錄她的網(wǎng)站，你會(huì)看到一個(gè)用她自己的頭發(fā)編成的精致頭骨。還有一個(gè)編織的螺旋柱，看上去比頭骨更結(jié)實(shí)，它的作用相當(dāng)于日歷，它既記錄世界上發(fā)生的大事，也記錄個(gè)人成長(zhǎng)的小事。一談起她待過(guò)的國(guó)家，旅行過(guò)的地方，還有自己是怎么成為藝術(shù)家時(shí)，坎寧安那溫和的愛(ài)爾蘭口音便會(huì)交織出時(shí)而飄渺時(shí)而具體的畫(huà)面，這些話(huà)語(yǔ)本身就像藝術(shù)品一樣。

From knitting to painting, Irish artist weaves her heritage and surroundings into her art, as Tracie Barrett discovers.

The first thing one notices on entering the Beijing apartment of artist Niamh Cunningham is the number of canvases covering almost every inch of wall space. A closer look shows an equally impressive variety of styles and subject matter - the dark reds and black silhouettes of her subway series, thickly applied impasto oils that form rugged crags on a huge mountains cape, and the soft, seemingly melting lines of her Transparent Milk portraits, inspired by the work of the contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Delong.

Nor does the Dublin-born artist limit herself to working on canvas. Stepping into her studio or browsing her website, one can see a delicate knitted skull spun from her own hair and a more solid knitted spiral that serves as a calendar, both public and very personal. Cunningham’s speech is an artwork of its own, her soft Irish brogue weaving ethereal and elemental images, as she speaks of the countries in which she has lived and traveled and her evolution as an artist.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not when one sees the detail in her work, Cunningham studied biomedical sciences at university and has both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in the field. Art has always been part of her life, however, learned first from her mother and grandmother and honed through practice and experimentation.

“My gran was a painter,” she says, “So she gave me my first oils when I was 11. My mother used to make marmalade from real oranges and when the crates of oranges came, there was a canvas board on the crates.”

Her grandmother, a “hobbyist” painter, taught her how to prime the boards and they were her first canvases.

令人驚訝的是，坎寧安在大學(xué)讀的是生物醫(yī)學(xué)，并且拿到了生物醫(yī)學(xué)的本科和碩士學(xué)位，這也許可以從她的作品細(xì)節(jié)中看出。藝術(shù)一直是她生活的一部分。然而，她最初是從母親和祖母那里學(xué)來(lái)的，后來(lái)，通過(guò)反復(fù)實(shí)踐和嘗試，她變得越來(lái)越得心應(yīng)手。

“我的祖母是個(gè)畫(huà)家?！笨矊幇舱f(shuō)，“我11歲的時(shí)候，她第一次給了我油畫(huà)顏料。我母親原來(lái)是做橘子醬的，每次有成箱的橘子運(yùn)來(lái)，箱子上都會(huì)蓋著一塊帆布板?！?/p>

坎寧安的祖母是一個(gè)“嗜畫(huà)成癮”的畫(huà)家，她教會(huì)了坎寧安如何利用這些帆布板，這些板成了她最早的油畫(huà)板。

在坎寧安專(zhuān)心于生物醫(yī)學(xué)期間，藝術(shù)被她丟在了一邊。一開(kāi)始在英國(guó)，她與她現(xiàn)在的丈夫相遇。后來(lái)她去了南非的約翰內(nèi)斯堡，在當(dāng)?shù)氐囊凰鶎W(xué)院教授醫(yī)學(xué)實(shí)驗(yàn)科學(xué)。在那里，她跟藝術(shù)系的老師們建立了友誼，并借此機(jī)會(huì)再次開(kāi)始嘗試自己的藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作，她說(shuō)她總是會(huì)把丙烯酸顏料畫(huà)和南非聯(lián)系起來(lái)。

一個(gè)地方與藝術(shù)作品之間的聯(lián)系，是坎寧安變化多樣的作品里永恒的主題，她說(shuō)自己的藝術(shù)作品是自己對(duì)置身之地的“明確回應(yīng)”。

離開(kāi)南非之后，她在香港待了7年，于1991年生下了兒子芬恩（Fionn），此后她又去東京呆了3年。后來(lái)，全家搬到迪拜住了5年?？矊幇舱f(shuō)，迪拜是她的“最初作品的題材來(lái)源”。

一家人住得離迪拜河不遠(yuǎn)，她幾乎每天都帶著兒子去河邊散步，潺潺的河水成了她迪拜風(fēng)光畫(huà)的主題。

她說(shuō)：“就是在那時(shí)候，我意識(shí)到自己應(yīng)該成為一名認(rèn)真專(zhuān)一的畫(huà)家，至少，我意識(shí)到我該放下我的教學(xué)工作了?！?/p>

她在迪拜舉辦了兩次個(gè)人展覽，然后一家人回到愛(ài)爾蘭，在那兒待了一年。這樣芬恩便可以體驗(yàn)?zāi)抢锏纳?，“知道他是?ài)爾蘭人”。從那個(gè)時(shí)期起她的作品便開(kāi)始描繪祖國(guó)的大好河山。

接下來(lái)的一年是在布拉格度過(guò)的，在那里她創(chuàng)作了一系列風(fēng)景圖，描繪著這座歷史名城里的屋頂和橋梁。然后，大約6年前，全家人搬到了北京，在這里，坎寧安再次開(kāi)始描繪美麗的風(fēng)景，也找回了童年在紡織品上繪圖的激情。

她說(shuō)：“我在讀小學(xué)的時(shí)候，只有一件事讓我覺(jué)得超級(jí)自信，也只有這件事讓我覺(jué)得我比學(xué)校的任何人都強(qiáng)，那就是編織。這是母親遺傳給我的東西之一?！?/p>

她說(shuō)她“大量想法”的靈感都來(lái)自于北京，包括描繪城市公共交通和自行車(chē)這一“慢速芭蕾”的作品系列，大大小小的車(chē)子擁擠在一起“像一群蜜蜂或其他什么昆蟲(chóng)”。

她說(shuō)：“我認(rèn)為，如果你有機(jī)會(huì)為一個(gè)展覽創(chuàng)作一些新作品，這能很自然地把你推向一個(gè)未知領(lǐng)域?！?/p>

Art fell by the wayside as she pursued a career in the medical field, first in England where she met her husband and then in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she taught Medical Lab Sciences at a local college. There, through friendships she made with staff in the art department, she started experimenting with her own art again and she says she will always associate South Africa with acrylics.

The connection between place and artwork is a constant in her diverse body of work, as she says her art is “definitely a response” to where she is.

Her time in South Africa was followed by seven years in Hong Kong, where her son Fionn was born in 1999, and three in Tokyo. The family then moved to Dubai for five years, and Cunningham said that is where her “first main body of work came”.

The family lived close to the Dubai Creek and she took Fionn walking there almost every day, its rippling waters becoming the lifeblood of her Dubai cityscapes.

“That’s when I knew I would be a very serious painter, or at least I knew I would have to drop my teaching.” she says.

She had two solo shows while in Dubai, then the family returned to Ireland for a year, so Fionn could experience living there and “know he was Irish”. Her work from that period portrays the rich emerald beauty of her homeland.

The next year was spent in Prague, resulting in another series of landscapes, featuring the rooftops and bridges of the historic city. Then, almost six years ago, the family relocated to Beijing, where Cunningham has again painted stunning landscapes, but also returned to a childhood passion for working with textiles.

“When I was in primary school, the only thing I felt super confident in doing, the only thing I was better at than anyone else in school was knitting and sewing,” she says, “It was one of the legacies my mother handed to me.”

She says she has “l(fā)oads of ideas” inspired by Beijing, including a series about the city’s public transport and the “slow ballet” of bicycles - “almost like a swarm of bees or insects”.

“I think if you have an opportunity to make new work for an exhibition, it’s natural to push yourself into unknown directions.” she says.