A Blessed Life. The Art of Chu Hing Wah

Chang Tsong-Zung

Written in Hong Kong in December of the 68^th year of the People’s Republic

Chu Hing Wah’s life story is neither dramatic nor extraordinary: rather, it is a story of ‘ordinary happiness’. For Chu Hing Wah, the way to happiness lies in finding contentment in the everyday, and in his own life he has mastered this principle. He is content with his lot in life, accepts things as they come, finds satisfaction in fulfilling his responsibilities, practices self-acceptance, and cherishes both people and things. Chu believes that the turns of fortune in his own life were gifts bestowed by heaven: winning a scholarship to study nursing in England, having the leisure time to discover the artistic riches of London’s museums, going on to a fulfilling career working in psychiatric hospitals, practicing art and becoming part of a lively circle of artistic friends, meeting fellow aficionados who share a love of Cantonese opera—for all of these things, Chu Hing Wah maintains a sense of fulfilment and gratitude. He values every experience, cares about every friend, respects others’ points of view, and appreciates every experience. In this way, Chu Hing Wah basks in the elements of quotidian life.

But does this mean that his art is also ‘ordinary’? To the contrary, it is just because of the way it illuminates the beauty and charm of the ordinary that Chu Hing Wah’s art is so extraordinarily captivating.

Whether or not one is aware of the calm and simplicity that characterize Chu Hing Wah’s life journey, when one views his art it requires no special filters or methodologies. The narrative elements in his compositions are straightforward and familiar: a mountain is a mountain, a person is a person. Yet, it is only because we are encountering Chu Hing Wah’s art that we chance to notice this particular mountain, or that particular person. It is as intuitively direct, as in the way a child finds pleasure in looking at the world. The simplicity of Chu’s painting technique is such that it is almost irrelevant to pass judgement on whether it is good or bad. His objective descriptions do not aim for accuracy of representation: rather, his forms are awkward and simplistic, and oddly static, as though the figures in his paintings were in a state of suspended animation. While they communicate the sense of a narrative moment, one feels that the plotline they are part of is neither unusual nor complicated: there is no intrigue, no mystery to unravel.

The compelling quality of Chu’s paintings lies neither in technique nor in narrative complexity, but rather in the way they draw us in. The more attentive we are to these roughly delineated figures and landscapes, the more deeply we look at them and ‘listen’ to their presence, the more we understand that their stories are endless.

Chu Hing Wah says, ‘Come look, here is a mountain, here is a person.’ But what kind of person is it that Chu Hing Wah is looking at, and what kind of landscape?

Chu Hing Wah’s paintings reveal a kind of timeless message to us. Although they are tranquil and intimate, they also contain a quality of serene melancholy. This is not the unchanging serenity of a utopia or a heavenly paradise, but rather the kind of profound calm that manifests in the wake of a great storm or tsunami; the deathly stillness that follows a period of cataclysmic violence. When people have survived an event in which the ordinary tenor of life has been completely turned upside down, they are no longer concerned with value judgments, but rather with trying to come to a new understanding of life and the world.

The quietude and stillness in Chu Hing Wah’s art is an expression of the understanding that comes in the aftermath of shared disaster; and it is this that sets his art apart from that of a child who sees a mountain as a mountain. His landscapes emerge from the mutual understanding that comes when one has survived a shattering change in one’s world. Rather than on the form of a person or a landscape, Chu Hing Wah’s vision is focused on the shared experience of being alive in this world at this moment.

Many people have wondered about the connection between Chu Hing Wah’s professional life as a psychiatric nurse and his artistic creation. For over 25 years, he spent days and nights caring for the mentally ill, becoming deeply familiar with his patients’ inner world—a world that exists outside the bounds of ‘normal’ society. Yet Chu has always strongly maintained that these patients, many of whom became his friends, are neither ‘abnormal’ nor ‘deficient’. He believes that their world is legitimate, whole and complete: the only difference is that their world does not share the same trajectory of language as that of normal society; yet it has its own logic and reason. Though the boundaries of their world are confined by this difference in language, yet within this separate system they can create a way of life that works for them.

Chu Hing Wah’s paintings depict both people who are a familiar part of our everyday social world, with whom we share the same social language, and patients who communicate differently, through their unique individual languages—but in Chu’s paintings, we cannot distinguish which is which. In Chu Hing Wah’s world, we all share the same right to exist on this earth, and each person has his or her own place. Finding one’s authentic place within this life is contingent on bringing a sense of love and compassion to one’s understanding of life’s purpose.

Chu Hing Wah’s message to us is that our greatest blessing is to be alive. For those who have survived calamity, the distinctions of fortune or status become irrelevant. The melancholic serenity which emanates from his paintings comes from a place of loving understanding. I cannot say exactly why his paintings bring to mind the idea of renewed life after a storm; maybe it is because their sense of a timeless quotidian serenity is never monotonous, but rather is always felt as a blessing.

Translation by Valerie C. Doran

汎愛人的赤子：

朱興華的藝術人生

張頌仁

朱興華的生命故事平淡無奇，一句籠統的「幸福快樂」大概就離實況不遠。至於幸福快樂的道理，在於朱興華也是平淡無奇的， 他安於現狀，安於職守，樂天知命，愛人惜物。生命的每一個轉折點對他來說都是上天恩賜：受頒獎學金到英國學習護理，倫敦課閒發現藝術博物館的珍藏，在精神護理院的生涯，繪畫道路上認識藝術圈朋友，粵曲大戲找到同道，這一切朱興華都滿懷感激。他珍惜每段經歷，重視每位相知，尊重人人的立場，回味一切體驗。

他的繪畫特徵是否也在於平淡無奇？應該說正適其反，他的繪畫魅力在於平淡出奇。

無論知道不知道朱興華的簡單生平故事，看他的畫並不需要任何竅門。他作品的內容平鋪直述，看山是山，看人是人。不過，要不是朱興華畫出來，我們不見得看到這座山這個人。正如小孩見到事物會一下子歡喜：這兒看見有樹，這就是樹了，那邊看見有樓，那就是樓了。技巧單純到無法說好說壞，大家不會故意去評他繪畫的技術，因為他的客觀描述並不準確， 造型笨拙簡陋，又缺乏運動感。畫面的形體一個個掛在那裏，表示某些故事情節，但故事並不出奇，不會引人深究。但離奇的是，看畫人看著看著竟然會被迷住了。這些畫得不準確的人物樓房，沒有特別情節的故事，竟然越看越好看，不值得特別講的平淡故事，居然讓人很想聽下去，越聽越好像有說不盡的人生故事。

朱興華說這是一個人，這是一座山，你來看。他看到什麼樣的人，看到什麼樣的樓房山水呢？

朱興華的畫面透露一種永恆的訊息，寬容平正而容易親近，可是沈澱著一派安詳的沈鬱。 這裏的安詳沈鬱不是烏托邦或桃花源的永恆不變，而更像大風大浪之後的平靜，甚至亂世狂暴之後的死寂。經過人世秩序顛倒的時代，世道人心已不在乎好惡正邪之辨，而更在乎生命與世界的諒解。朱興華的平淡帶著患難與共的亂世後的諒解，所以他不像小孩直觀的看山是山。他的山水是經歷世變後才互相諒解的山水。不論山水或人物，朱興華感人的不是造型，而是共享此時此地的共存感。

很多人好奇朱興華的職業生涯對作品的影響。二十五年來，他跟精神科病人日夕共處，介入病人在社會生活以外的思維模式，不過他堅持他不認為這些人、這些跟他成為朋友的院友是不正常的或有毛病的。他認為他們有完整的世界，這世界跟社會上共通的世界不處在同一個語言軌跡上，可是完全有其邏輯與合理性。或許他們是被困在一個語言不通的國度，以致被局限在週圓侷促的地理環境，必須在這裡整理出一套自己的生活方式。

朱興華的繪畫描述了我們熟悉的社會人，也描述這些帶著個人語言來到世間的院友，可是在畫面上我們往往分不出誰是誰。在朱興華的世界裡每人都分享了共存的天地，而每人在此都有應該的位置。能夠在此找到自己的位置，是因為每人對生命和世界都帶著愛意的諒解。

朱興華似乎告訴我們：能夠經歷生命就是人生的慶幸，對於劫後餘生的人，所有幸運與不幸都是平等的。他的畫散發安詳的沈鬱，也充滿諒解的愛意。我不知道為什麼他的畫會引起劫後餘生的念頭，可能因為帶著永恆感的平淡絕對不會平淡無奇。而且，可以經歷一輩子的平淡絕對是個奇蹟。

序於人民共和六十八年十二月於香港