- Evelyn
【袁慧莉 Yuan Hui Li】Fiery-ink, Breathing in Smog
「過去山水畫總是關注自然的美，而忽略去表現不美地部分，但既然我們經驗了真實的當下，為什麼要迴避那永遠不被關注的部分呢？我想，所謂『當代』就是要去揭開那些過往被遮蔽的部份。」女藝術家袁慧莉這麼說。
在 2015 年冬天，袁慧莉前往了北京進行現地創作，一下飛機，霧霾籠罩了整個城市，空氣重度污染，當時的感知開啟了她自己獨有的 #火墨創作觀念。在當地的琉璃廠買了整刀宣紙，將其燒灼並將炭灰作為火墨的材料。同時為水墨藝術家的她，延襲水墨畫技法的轉化，將早春圖中的大地甦醒與清新、煙靄浮騰、一片欣欣向榮的景象，用火墨畫的方式呈現；而現代的早春圖，早已因污染取代了古時候的空氣狀態，火墨就是在這種生活經驗下產生出來的藝術。山水畫對應了自然題材，透過材質 (宣紙) 的轉化，產生強烈的歷史性，呈現工業前與工業後的時代對比。火墨的提出在材質、意義與美學上，有著豐厚的層次，不僅對應環保，也對應著文 化美學議題。
除此之外，水墨追求的是潤墨美學，而火墨則是 #燥，並非潤，燥即是焦燥的燥，是處在這空氣污染的環境下而產生的感觸。將宣紙燒灼，用殘剩之物來做畫的她，讓被毀壞的大自然，燃燒殆盡再獲重生與尊嚴。
"In the past, the classical "shansui" painting always focuses on the beauty of nature and ignores the unpleasant part, however, since we experienced the moments of reality, why we always escape from the unregarded issues. Contemporary art is to reveal the past that has been hidden.", YuanHuili said.
#Fieryink was inspired by the artist’s trip to Beijing during the winter in 2015, where a red alert for severe smog put her in shock. It was then that she first realized this ancient mainland which had cradled millennia of history became a far cry from the unworldly utopia portrayed in literati painting with the traditional language of ink that can no longer correspond to reality. Classical painting theories emphasize the vivacious expression of the swirling fog in clouds of unshapen mist in ink. This principle gave rise to the “Moistness” in literati painters’ use of the medium, which has prevailed for centuries. The traditional view of moistness in ink, which confronted with the scorch in the air induced by modern-day industrialization, appears to be antiquated. Out of these circumstances, "Fiery Ink" was born. The artist was determined to innovate the timeworn medium. "Fiery Ink" rendered the classical shanshui painting into the one of a kind by ashes of Chinese handmade paper (Xuan) and shifted the context for traditional landscape painting. Her creative twist on the medium’s physicality serves not only as a reactionary in response to the disquieting phenomenon of global warming but also helps change the trajectory of traditional ink aesthetics. She reinterprets classical Chinese painting in fiery ink and proposes “burntness” ink aesthetics from the ashes, also has she transformed the traditional landscape painting from aesthetics to modernity.