刘小东 Liu Xiaodong ( b.1963 )

1963年出生于中国辽宁省锦州市金城镇。现生活和工作于北京。1988年毕业于中央美术学院，并在该校任教至今。

刘小东是中国最杰出的现实主义画家，他将中国艺术家于80年代以来注重意识形态表现和西方现代主义绘画模仿的艺术风气，拉回到了中国的现实之中。刘小东喜欢画身边的东西，那些自然，简单、朴素、亲切的人物，是他取之不竭的灵感源泉，并以敏锐的观察力和高超的绘画表现力，成为那一代人当中的佼佼者。后来刘小东的绘画方向逐渐发展成关注更宏大、更具社会意义的主题，同时藉由纪录片的影像和日记的书写，更加全面的捕捉他眼中真实的状态。在有人说「绘画已死」的现在，刘小东带着自有架上绘画以来最简单的工具──笔、色和布，足迹遍及中、台、日、泰、美、义、古巴、西藏等地，踏踏实实的现地写生。刘小东画过长江三峡大坝建设时期的拆迁工人、泰国的性工作者、汶川地震后的幸存者、两岸的年轻军人、新疆和阗的采玉工人。他鹰般敏锐的双眼搜索着当下现实中的个体生活型态，透过饱满、刚健的绘画语言，用颜色、画笔交代着他眼中的现实世界，笔下的每一个寻常人都是他对生命的深意凝视，他们述说着人类延续至今而且势必将永远延续下去的最简单的情感和关系，并反映出青春的稍纵即逝、都市化的影响、社会经济的变革、大时代的变迁，为城市化洪流中被遗忘的小镇和底层人物留下了永恒不灭的证据。他也涉猎电影，他主演的《冬春的日子》入选英国BBC的世界电影百年百部经典影片，策划的《三峡好人》获第63届威尼斯电影节金狮奖，而记录他创作过程的《东》获欧洲艺术协会及义大利纪录片协会大奖，返回辽宁老家创作的《金城小子》则获得2011年金马奖最佳纪录片大奖和台北电影节百万首奖、最佳纪录片及最佳导演大奖。目前他定居和工作于北京，同时于母校北京中央美术学院油画系任教。

Born in 1963 in Jincheng, a town in the Liaoning Province in China. Currently lives and works in Beijing. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1988 and has been teaching there to this day.

As other artists of his generation turn away from more traditional forms of painting, Liu continues to capture the realism of life and his technique has matured into "slack expressionism" where a sense of immediacy and familiarity permeates throughout his paintings, further accentuated by his disinterested interpretation of the subject matter; this familiarity becomes the basis of a dialogue between artist and viewer.

The affection he has for people is the starting point of his work, which gradually spreads into the field of social implication. The life of man and their body, the texture of air and objects are the few vital points of Liu’s work.

He is on the constant search of the subtle gap that separates painting and other artistic forms, and he has found his answer in the sentimental demand of painting as a craftsmanship. Liu values painting as a movement. He says "the process of painting brings surely a body language, and this is what makes painting irreplaceable. It is coagulation rather than instantaneity that is at the core of painting."

Rather than some specific brush technique, it is the social environment and situations that make up the "Realistic" core of Liu's works. This realism is moving away from the social realism of the past- a movement that despite its name relied on an artificial setting of themes. Liu refrains from placing his models within his own subjective nostalgia; instead he locates them firmly in the breathless and ever-changing transformation of Chinese society.

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