The rising sun   watercolor 108X78 (cm) 2006

    I had known Fengming for many years, I am several years elder than him and we are like brothers. Even he lives in the city of Jilin City and I am in Changchun, we had always been able to meet each other several times a year, as time goes by, our friendship became deeper and deeper as we got to know each other more and more. Most of our get-together time was spent on discussions about painting and photographing, we gossiped like that for years and unconsciously， we both are entering our age of while-haired already.

    It was like 6 years ago, I was invited by Fengming to Jilin to reversely film about twenty of his latest work. What surprised me was those latest arts, comparing to the 33 piece of “old works” included in Liaoning Press published “China Modern Artists Collection”, are something with qualitative changes, in other words, they are something of a new realm.

Watercolor was originated from England, and was prevalent in Europe and America during mid-19th century, world renowned watercolor master artists such as William Russell Flint (England). The true pity of watercolor was that since its very first day, it has never been able to get rid of being a “small painting kind”. Especially in mid 20th century, watercolor was almost silenced from the stage of art due to swift painting material updates and other various reasons.  

  Fengming was majored in industrial art in his early years, which granted him deep understanding to the “valuable arts are creative” maxim. His understanding to “creative arts” is his course and feedbacks elevated through life and emotional experience. He had chosen to step in that silenced territory without hesitation, and placed his creativity in his arts that featured forests and snow plains... 30 years passed, his lone footprints had covered mountains, forests and plains of northern China. If we say that his early-stage artworks were still with classic characteristics of being fresh, elegant, and water-color blended, we could then descript his new arts since new millennium as a transformation from “light music” to “symphony” that featured “appearance” and “color” framework innovative arts. He was honest with me regarding such change, “understanding and insights to Peredvizhniki and Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin’s art motivated me”. He swore to create a new path in the field of watercolor.

Painting art’s ability to express deep sentimental thoughts and feelings and its ability to win viewer’s feeling of appreciation of beauty as well as resonance, are often essence to evaluate a piece of artwork’s artistic value, and is also a significant sign to determine maturity of an artist’s art. His art “Grand Blue Forest” was derived from a corner of Twin-Peaks forest in Heilongjiang Province, while “fertile soil” was enlightened by Changbai Mountain underground forests. I had been to both places with Fengming for several times, and I was very impressed by his ability to capture a static moment of the changing world, turning that into eternal. Maybe that shall be the very difference between Fengming and other watercolor artists.

However Fengming remained his strength at painting realistically even after changing. Outstanding features of his arts are wide range layouts, spectacular scenes, gorgeous blinked through simple, dignity included in elegance, expressing translucence with strong colors. Without words, he admires reckless soul of the great nature, singing agitated songs of life! That is Li Fengming’s art language, and that is Li Fengming’s one of a kind watercolors.

Fengming will be 60 soon enough, which is golden time for artists. With 30 years of struggling, he managed to break through the affiliation bounded with watercolors, and raised flag of his own. I believe that one day his efforts and artwork will be widely recognized by painting community, which eventually will bring him followers, and that is when a new art style shall prevail. With fervent hope, I am looking forward to that.