Dance and the Ancestors – 江演媚 JIANG, Yanmei

Dance and the Ancestors is a series of large-scale abstract paintings exploring how memory, cultural inheritance, and bodily movement can exist within the same pictorial space. Drawing from my childhood in Guangzhou, a subtropical coastal city shaped by dense humidity, layered histories, and everyday rituals, I approach unstretched canvas as a space where sensory memory and physical gesture can meet.

《舞与祖先》是一系列大尺幅抽象绘画，探索记忆、文化传承与身体运动如何共同存在于同一个绘画空间之中。我的童年在广州度过，那是一座亚热带沿海城市，潮湿的空气、层叠的历史与日常仪式共同塑造了我的感官记忆。我将未装裱的画布视为一个身体动作与记忆相遇的场域。

In these works, I draw from Chinese shuimo painting and glazing techniques, allowing diluted pigments, translucent layers, and flowing marks to soften edges and dissolve boundaries. Within these atmospheric fields, energetic brushstrokes move across the surface like fragments of an unfolding dance. Having trained in traditional Chinese calligraphy as a child, I rely on the muscle memory of writing to translate internal rhythm and qi into physical action.

在这些作品中，我借鉴中国水墨与罩染的方式，通过稀释的颜料、透明色层与流动的痕迹，使边缘变得柔和，让形体之间的界限逐渐消融。在这些氛围性的色域之中，充满能量的笔触在画面上移动，如同一场持续展开的舞蹈。童年时期接受的中国书法训练，使我能够依靠书写的肌肉记忆，将内在的节奏与“气”转化为身体性的绘画行动。

Saturated reds, oranges, and other flashes of color emerge from quieter, mist-like grounds. These colors recall ceremonial objects, ancestral worship, festivals, and other visual memories embedded in the culture in which I grew up. I am less interested in depicting these traditions directly than in asking how they remain within the body—how inherited memory can reappear through gesture, rhythm, color, and intuition.

高饱和度的红色、橙色以及其他鲜明色彩，从较为安静、雾气般的背景中浮现出来。这些颜色使我联想到祭祀器物、祖先崇拜、节庆以及成长文化中留下的视觉记忆。我并不试图直接描绘这些传统，而更关注它们如何留存在身体之中——继承而来的记忆如何通过动作、节奏、色彩与直觉再次显现。

The “dance” in the title refers to the movement of the living body: immediate, instinctive, and continuously changing. The “ancestors” suggest forms of memory that precede the individual—cultural, familial, and collective traces carried through the body. Painting becomes a meeting point between these two forces, where the present body moves with histories it cannot fully name.

标题中的“舞”指向当下身体的运动——直接、直觉，并持续变化；“祖先”则指向那些早于个体存在的记忆，包括文化、家庭与集体经验在身体中留下的痕迹。绘画因此成为两种力量相遇的地方：当下的身体，与那些无法被完全命名的历史共同运动。