‘Gaze Back’ of lilyma 马莉(Part 1)

‘Gaze Back’ of lilyma 马莉(Part 1) 20:35mints

《回眸》第一集lilyma马莉（上）

‘Gaze Back’ of lilyma 马莉(Part 1)

导演/主持人Director/Host:：陈世海 Chen Shihai

嘉宾 Guests：lilyma马莉、吕新 Lvxin

摄像 Cameraman：陈恩及 Chen Enji、许臣斌 Sandy Xu

后期 Edit/ DIT：陈恩及 Chen Enji

Part 1

Chen Shihai: These past couple of days in Paris have been overcast and drizzly; the pink hues make it a bit more bearable. It's always like this – while creating something dazzling, it also reveals an underlying, helpless sorrow.

The first friend I'd like to introduce is the painter Ma Li（lilyma）. She's the same painter who collaborated with me on "A Jug of Wine Amidst the Flowers." If I had to define her identity, I'd prefer to call her an artist. She originally studied Chinese opera, later worked as a film director, and then moved on to writing novels and painting. I wouldn't exactly say I'm a fan of her paintings, but I am a fan of her use of color. There's a particularly famous painting of hers recently, I think it's from that hit drama, The Tale of Rose.

lilyma: Yes, The Tale of Rose. It's the one featuring the lead character, Huang Yimei. That's not my signature, actually (that's me signing the character's name).

Chen Shihai: So this painting is part of your "Pink Beach" series? Was this painted from life?

lilyma: No, it wasn't from life. Actually, I started painting the "Pink Beach" series back in 2016. For me, it represents my hopes for love and marriage. It's where I'd want to go on my honeymoon.

Chen Shihai: Marriage? Are you married?

lilyma: No, no, not at all.

Chen Shihai: Well... that's thinking quite far ahead, isn't it?

lilyma: Thinking far ahead, yes. It was my childhood dream, you know, as teenage girl. A honeymoon on a pink sand beach.

Chen Shihai: Generally speaking, such magnificent dreams, this pink color, would be in the sky, representing boundless freedom. Why did you place it on the ground, while your sky, despite having white clouds, seems rather somber?

lilyma: In reality, there's no outcome, no result, nothing I'm trully looking for. Yet, I wanted to create something for myself...

Chen Shihai: Don't lose confidence! You have meet the one yet.

lilyma: Yes, no for now. This one's composition... it's the one I painted in the office in 2016. I was feeling really gloomy that day, really gloomy, and then...

Chen Shihai: Had a bad breakup?

lilyma: No, no, there was no time for relationship. I was just working, constantly working, always working. I felt like life was just rolling on like that, caught in this relentless grind. So I painted "Pink Beach" in the office. I suppose, since my dreams (ideals) hadn't come true, my heart felt quite heavy.

Chen Shihai: So there's both this magnificent dream, this deep-seated hope for sweetness, but also the pressures and encumbrances that real life brings.

lilyma: Later, I added that "Eye of the Sky."

Chen Shihai: This sky...

lilyma: At first glance, you might not notice it, but it holds oppression, resistance, and also beautiful hope. Whether you love me is your business; don't force me to reciprocate your love. I also believe that love can make you live or die for someone. That's how I thought when I was young. The Peony Pavilion is exactly about that!

Chen Shihai: So that's your view on love. Right.

lilyma: Exactly, exactly. But in reality... it's very transactional, very transactional. It's all about exchange. Fish Love.

Chen Shihai: Meaning, "I give you something, you have to give me something in return."

lilyma: Yes, and then there's so much resentment. It's not beautiful, you know. But that doesn't mean I can't preserve this beauty, preserve these emotions. It's just... I'm still someone who lives life to the fullest. Mm-hmm.

Chen Shihai: Being able to live life to the fullest – that's already pretty wonderful. In today's world, being someone who can truly live life to the fullest is actually very difficult.

In my daily interactions with Ma Li, we often discuss her past, including her past loves. I know she's someone who possesses a chivalrous spirit in the present moment. People like that are probably rare these days.

Part 2

Chen Shihai: You're a very renowned painter now, but you started out in Chinese opera, right? Film and theater. I was looking at your background, and I remember you won the highest award in the national opera scene, the Wenhua Award, when you were around twenty.

lilyma: Yes, along with the "Five One Project" Award (national level). I was 22.

Chen Shihai: The Five One Award is also impressive. Normally speaking, from a worldly or utilitarian perspective, winning the top award in your field in your early twenties would mean a path of brilliant success ahead. So why did you switch fields?

lilyma: Actually, when I was 15, I wrote in my diary that I wanted to study film and become a director. Yes, 15. But my very first dream, at age 3, was to be a painter. So I thought, well, this is close enough, so I'd have something to show for it. I wanted to know what else I could do. Beyond this comfort zone of opera, beyond my professional expertise, was there more of the world for me to see?! I wanted to go! I wanted to see the world! I also wanted to find out, who am I?! Yes!!

Chen Shihai: On one hand, it's a free spirit; on the other, it's a seed planted deep in your heart since childhood, giving rise to that kind of aspiration.

lilyma: Settling down? Yes, I thought about it – I mean, becoming an artist. But there was no utilitarian motive. It's about wanting to explore the possibilities of different forms, driven by curiosity. Yes, that's what I wanted to know. And I was young enough.

Chen Shihai: Yes, you have experience, you have dreams, and from this, I get the sense that you are a very persistent person.

lilyma: Close to stubborn.

Chen Shihai: You also worked as an actress and director for a while.

lilyma: Yes, yes, that was my second field.

Chen Shihai: Did you go on to formally study that (directing) field?

lilyma: Yes, I studied at the Beijing Film Academy's directing department. But I didn't actually make many films; I switched to producing.

Chen Shihai: I remember you also write novels?

lilyma: Yes, I write novels. Uh, let me show you this first, hehe. I painted this accordion-style book. It's about my childhood, before I started elementary school, when I was born in Yixing. This is me recalling when I was three or four... the back hill of Anle Village, which I thought was a big mountain, but it was actually a small hill.

Chen Shihai: When you've seen mountains and rivers and then look back, often it feels different. Luoyang Town？

lilyma: Luoyang Town, Changzhou， right，where I went to my third elementary school.

Chen Shihai: A balloon!

lilyma: Ah?? Not a balloon! Hahaha.（Condom）

Chen Shihai: This isn't a balloon; back then, you may not know what it was, so you thought it was a balloon.

lilyma: This is where my hometown is now (Henglin, Changzhou).

Chen Shihai: Looks like you were a mischievous kid.

lilyma: Very mischievous, very mischievous. (So mischievous that I understand why my mom wanted to spank me, she really wanted to spank me.)

Chen Shihai: So this is already at the opera school?

lilyma: Yes, at the opera school.

Chen Shihai: Able to hang upside down like this?

lilyma: A few opera roles later.

Chen Shihai: Provincial Opera School, yes, this is when you started performing opera.

lilyma: Started performing opera, doing shows. Things from childhood. This is an illustration for my novel, The Age of Innocence.

Chen Shihai: There's a novel called Age of Innocence.

lilyma: Age of Innocence. Let me find it...

Chen Shihai: You really are multi-talented: opera performance, directing, acting. I've seen your stage photos, and then painting, writing novels.

lilyma: This is documentation for the novel The Winter of Paris. My second novel. These are all my diaries from Paris, including how I made music, writing lyrics on the spot outside the recording studio.

Chen Shihai: Here you also painted wine, and a bottle. From 2018.

lilyma: This is a diary, right?

Chen Shihai: So are these diaries the threads for your novel? "Are you happy?"

lilyma: This is the immediate, real-time stuff, yes, the threads.

Chen Shihai: From when you were living in Paris.

lilyma: Yes, yes, also during a romantic relationship.

Chen Shihai: This is very interesting. On one side, there are words; on the other, there are patches of various colors, along with some sketches. This black one feels very melancholy. There are many sketches here.

lilyma: Yes, yes, sketches of  love.

Chen Shihai: And many that are not suitable for children. Very beautiful.

lilyma: This is the South of France.

Chen Shihai: This is really beautiful. This is the South of France, a small painting. Yes, just add a signature and it's ready. Wonderful.

lilyma: If I paint it in my diary, I don't have to sell it! Hahaha!

Chen Shihai: Look at these colors, really, all kinds of colors are present.

lilyma: (Manjusri Bodhisattva) I referenced someone's line drawing because I liked it, then colored it myself, painted in my notebook.

Chen Shihai: You have a very philosophical mind! "It snowed yesterday, and at night I accompanied him to AZ's stadium..." That was your boyfriend at the time. A basketball player, right? An athlete, he was an athlete.

lilyma: Too private! Ahhh! Yes!! Too much, too much.

Chen Shihai: So, one must be cautious when dating someone cultured who loves to document things; otherwise, everything you do gets recorded in detail.

lilyma: It all becomes material.

Chen Shihai: Ah, very interesting. She have a truly interesting soul. The colors in Ma Li's works are very intense, highly diverse, extremely complex, and multi-layered. Personally, I think this is profoundly connected to her emotions. Ma Li's emotions are passionate, fervent. In her every word and action, often in every witty remark she makes, she reveals the richness of her inner world.

I've been looking at your work – your colors often have very strong contrasts, lots of collisions, yet they are incredibly rich and full of depth. This kind of thing is actually very difficult to master. These are the colors I particularly love, very sophisticated.Do you think this sense of sophistication in color can be cultivated by ordinary people? Can it be trained?

lilyma: I think it can...

Chen Shihai: Look at this, normally this kind of yellow, pink, orange-red – these are very hard to harmonize, but when you put them together like this, it looks particularly sophisticated. And this, this is blue.

lilyma: Perhaps I'm a bit bolder.

Chen Shihai: It takes great skill to be so bold.

Part 3

Chen Shihai: People our age have all heard a song called "Whose Tears Are Flying." Whenever I see Ma Li's self-portraits, especially her "Flower Tears" series, I find myself staring into her eyes, looking at the colors and shapes of her tears. Often, as I look, my heart aches.

lilyma: Actually, we modern people have communication patterns and communication barriers. It's like we have obstacles in social interaction, and we wear masks. Many things cannot be shared with others;  they can only be hidden in the heart. So, there is joy, there is happiness, there is sorrow, there is melancholy—all kinds of emotions, ah! They transform into all sorts of tears that cannot be expressed.

Chen Shihai: Using this symbol itself—its shapes, its colors—to express your inner emotions. It's also a way of conversing with the world.

lilyma: Yes. But it's more of a self-dialogue. Talking to myself. Actually, most of what I express revolves around the theme of loneliness, because I cherish freedom. I pursue freedom. What I've always been seeking are the two words: "freedom." But I've discovered that before reaching the true state of freedom, there is extreme unfreedom.

Chen Shihai: Hehe, indeed. "If for freedom one could sacrifice everything."

lilyma: And it's very painful. But later I realized, oh, so the ultimate state of freedom is solitude. Loneliness might be something else. But solitude is a rather wonderful state. I record solitude extensively; it is also a state of freedom. Life, freedom, passion.

Part 4

Chen Shihai: Ma Li is a flower fairy. She paints flowers extensively. When she paints, she says she experiences life—the power of life. Life, from a flower's birth to its withering. She says the process of painting flowers is her unique way of "burying flowers." She captures the moment when a flower's spirit and vitality are at their peak, and she says this is her experience of life.

lilyma: When we paint flowers, say a flower in full bloom or in decay, but in the process of growing flowers, it embodies the completeness of life. Actually, painting flowers is a different kind of "burying flowers." In Dream of the Red Chamber, there's the scene of "Burying Flowers," right? Yes, when you bury flowers, they return to the soil to nourish the next season. I consider my way an alternative form of burying flowers. I think, life is only once; can I make it eternal? And every flower is unique. If you compare each flower to a person, you'll understand.

Chen Shihai: Your series of fresh flowers must be an expression of recording and understanding life.

lilyma: Yes! It's that straightforward. Yes, yes! That straightforward!

Chen Shihai: Our collaboration on "Among the Flowers a Pot of Wine" was actually very simple. It happened one day while we were chatting, just a casual remark. 

I said, "Hey, let's create a 'Among the Flowers a Pot of Wine,' paired with a 'Wordless understanding through a gesture.'" 

She listened and said, "That's a great idea." 

I asked, "Can you paint on the bottle?" 

She said, "I've never done it before, but I can try." 

I said, "Aren't you worried that your work might lose something when presented on a commercial product?" 

She just chuckled and said, "That's your problem; I'll focus on creating." 

You see, from this, you can tell that Ma Li has a pure soul.

Chen Shihai: This was painted, not fired onto the piece, right? Look at how rich these colors are.

lilyma: This is the color you wanted. Oh my.

Chen Shihai: Although everyone who sees my wine product nowadays says, "Oh, it's really nice, very beautiful," and many even take it home to use as a vase. But frankly, I'm personally not entirely satisfied. I think it's quite difficult to transform an artist's work—to translate it onto a commercial product and present it perfectly.

lilyma: Actually, I never imagined it would be this difficult.

Chen Shihai: Yellow peony?

lilyma: Yellow peony.

Chen Shihai: Yellow peony, yes, on this bottle. This is truly beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Ah, next time I host a gathering featuring huangjiu (yellow wine), or other cultural events, I'll present these to everyone. This is the real "Flowers Amidst Wine" by lilyma, the true sense of design. Yes, this is ours.

lilyma: White roses. You can paint them white, but when fired, I knew it would just be a blob of white, so I had to modify it, I had to add something.

Chen Shihai: So you added green to it. So our final piece had white roses interspersed with green.

lilyma: When the first failed sample came out, I analyzed the discrepancy, how much difference there was, and then I adjusted my oil painting technique accordingly.

Chen Shihai: It's truly beautiful. Let me put down the painting and look at this. If we could actually fire it to look like this, then I think everyone who gets one would be receiving a work of art.

lilyma: I've put a coating on this, so you can touch it.

Chen Shihai: This one doesn't have the coating, so I'll be careful. Yes.

lilyma: Yes. That coating is finised.

Chen Shihai: This is the crabapple blossom, right? This crabapple blossom, we had it fired, and it came out exactly as this flower, yes, yes, this one.

lilyma: It's the Xifu crabapple from my lakeside.

Chen Shihai: You flower thief, yes, picking flowers everywhere.

lilyma: People are quite understanding with me.

Chen Shihai: This is iris, yes, the one I mentioned earlier that's so vibrant. What did you use to paint this?

lilyma: Acrylic!

Chen Shihai: Acrylic, the adhesion is good. Ah yes, look at this sense of layering, so beautiful. Yes, and this cup, see? Originally, we wanted this petite size that fits perfectly in your hand. But after firing, it turned out chubby. It wasn't the firing process; the manufacturer actually got the size wrong. But it's okay, now we have one slender and one chubby version.

lilyma: I've gotten used to the chubby one now; this one feels a bit unfamiliar!

Chen Shihai: Right? I prefer the feeling of a slender cup that fits perfectly in the hand.

lilyma: So I like the chubby one?!

Chen Shihai: Wonderful, these flowers are wonderful too. This is truly wonderful. This, this will be absolutely fantastic for gatherings and exhibitions.

lilyma: Yes! Great.

Chen Shihai: This cup. I'll send you some plain cups when I get back, and you can paint them yourself, okay? Just for fun. When you have time, of course. We know an artist's time is precious, and every brushstroke counts.

lilyma: We didn't calculate this time, we didn't count. We just wanted to offer a flower to the Buddha.

Chen Shihai: Our friendship is stronger than gold. When you put your artwork on our wine bottles, and the final product might not match the level of your original work, does that concern you? Do you ever worry that people will see it, with your signature, and think, "Oh, this is Ma Li's work," and that it might affect your reputation? Have you thought about that?

lilyma: First, I trust your taste. You wouldn't ruin my work.

Chen Shihai: Putting me on the spot?! Haha!

lilyma: Yes, yes, if it passes your standards, it'll generally pass. Did I ever have a fleeting thought like that? Maybe, just for a second. But I was more curious: "Wow, I've never done this before, let's try it, what will the result be?" Ultimately, the fact that we got a final product, I consider that a success.

Chen Shihai: Can I summarize what you just said? There are a few points: First, your constant exploration of innovation in art—whether in subject matter, materials, or medium—you're willing to experiment boldly.

lilyma: Yes.

Chen Shihai: Second, you also expressed your view on friendship here. Essentially, you're willing to entrust yourself and your artistic life to friends you recognize, believe in, and trust.

lilyma: Yes!!! Who respect you!

Chen Shihai: Third, when you're fully engaged in creating and innovating on a piece, you spare no effort. You don't just stick to areas you're familiar with, like spending more time on easel painting; you also use modern technology, like all the digital tools available, to help achieve the best possible result when the work is presented on a commercial product.

lilyma: Yes!!!

Chen Shihai: I've had a few drinks with Ma Li. Every time we drink, I always end up saying, "Drink a little less, drink a little less." She's someone who can fully express herself under the influence of alcohol. She says wine is her spiritual companion. I think wine is probably a very important friend in her life.