1. Obsessing over “likeness” — the realist trap
Whether in classical oil painting or meticulous gongbi painting, the core question is always: *Does it look like the object?* Whose hand is steadier? Whose eye is sharper? In the end, what is being competed over is craftsmanship.
2. Obsessing over “form” — the compositional/abstract trap
Whether Mondrian or Kandinsky, the core question becomes: *Is it beautiful? Is the composition strong?* Whose sense of form is stronger? Whose color arrangement is more refined? In the end, what is being competed over is design ability.
3. Obsessing over “emotion” or “taste” — the expressionist/literati trap
Whether Van Gogh or Bada Shanren, the core question becomes: *Does it have flavor?* What people call “interest,” “elegance,” “awkwardness,” or “naivety” is, in fact, a projection of the persona. Whoever has the more distinct artistic personality, whoever expresses emotion more infectiously, wins. In the end, what is being competed over is performance, temperament, or talent.
Senxiangism seeks to leap out of these three traps and create a fourth dimension: state itself as the work.
What Senxiangism attempts to address is the original chaotic state of life.
It does not describe objects: therefore, one does not see specific mountains, waters, flowers, or birds.
It does not reinforce format: it rejects predetermined composition, insisting on “non-premeditated creation”.
It does not sell emotion: “interest,” “elegance,” and “awkwardness” are all human-defined labels, all forms of attachment to the self. Senxiangism emphasizes the **suspension of intention**, precisely in order to break through this attachment.
So what is it?
It is a kind of “manifestation”.
It is like taking a long-exposure photograph of the night sky, or observing cell division under a microscope. It is not something “created” by the artist in the conventional sense. Rather, the artist provides an environment—paper, ink, water—and allows the energies of the universe, or of the subconscious, to flow out by themselves.
Now that AI art has become popular, people have discovered that machine-generated images possess a certain non-human beauty. Although Senxiangism is handmade, it emphasizes ‘non-intentionality’, which in some ways echoes the logic of AI generation: both allow the image to grow by itself, rather than having a human forcibly impose a shape upon it.
At this point in the development of painting, Chinese viewers have grown tired of their own traditional ink painting, while Western viewers have also grown tired of their abstraction. Audiences long for a completely new visual language.
Senxiangism answers this longing through a unique and innovative Eastern pictorial language, creating a visual feast in which the breath of nature and all living things interweave.
