陈卉的画，就是用自己眼睛看到并表达着自己的“异尚”感觉，或者说她作为年轻人同时也在自己的作品里创造着“异尚”。这些画通过人的形象、体型、发型、装束等方面表达和创造了她的“异尚”。其中形象的创造尤其出色，一反时尚媒体充斥的大美人形象，塑造出一种带点怪异的反叛形象：大多数单眼皮小眼睛，两眼的距离偏远——相学说两眼距离远智商低，但这些小眼睛的眼神都被陈卉画得极有特点——极具定力的眼神充满自信、怀疑、无所畏惧。所以，陈卉作品对表情的刻画，就成为不可替代“人”的“异尚”。尤其是，不管T形台上模特有多另类多怪异，但模特还是模特，在身材的选择上，不可能走太远。相比，陈卉在这批作品中对于人物体型的塑造上，一反时尚的模特体型——女人们既无凹凸有致的曲线，男人也没有倒三角形的伟岸，都是些小乳房大肚腩的臃肿体型，或者为时尚所不推崇的有点丑的体型。而且动作多突出其夸张、搞笑和诙谐的感觉。

服装——在这里应该说是装束，也是陈卉这些作品的重头戏。发型——不管是“爆炸式”、 “乱草式”，还是“狮子头”和“烟花烫”；不管是染成黄色、紫色，还是红色和桔黄色；唯怪异和不同寻常才尽显“异尚”的取向。服装虽挪用时尚的一些因素，但显得廉价和怪异，色彩艳俗且花里胡哨。尤其服装的特别之处，是对日常服装和演出服装的混淆和似是而非的处理，或者说，这种装束本身就是“异尚”的重点——自己哄着自己玩，既消费时尚又消费自己，表现出网络时代青年人的那种游移于现实和虚拟之间，游移于人生的戏剧化和日常生活之间的感觉，这是一种新的现实感——对现代社会的既游戏其中又无可奈何的生存感觉。

写实的技艺是陈卉作品的主要特征，笔触细腻且冷静，造型尤其脸部和裸露身体部分的造型倾向严谨的方式。但这不是经典意义上的写实主义，陈卉有意避开典型环境中的典型人物的创作方法，常常把人物的背景画成一种倾向的颜色，或者把人物背景画成类似布景类似某名画中的风景，或者干脆把人物装进类似盒子的空间里，都是她有意地把她塑造的人物从人物的现实环境中抽离出来，放到一个虚拟和戏剧化的空间里，目标是烘托她创造的人物——她心中这个年代的青年人形象。从陈卉作品中，我们可以感觉到她对她作品中的人物充满了带点诙谐的爱意和真诚，因为她也年轻，她或许在想象中打扮着自己，并且和她的画中人一起在这个年代里嬉戏。

(文：栗宪庭 2008年）

In Chen Hui’s paintings I find, she uses her own eyes to view and express her own take on “strange fashion.” These paintings transcend such mundane levels as human images, figures, hairstyles and attire to express and craft her ‘strange fashion.’ Among these images, one of surpassing excellence is an anti-fashion image. In media swamped with pictures of breathtaking beauties, her form is a tad eccentric: the image of a rebel, eyes with single eyelids [most Chinese lack a lower eyelid and thus, in obedience to the dictates of logic, lower- eyelid insertion is one of the most popular forms of aesthetic enhancement surgery in China], small eyes set far apart – an indicator of low IQ, they say. However, these small eyes Chen Hui draws are very determined little orbs: bounding with confidence, yet brimming with suspicion, even fraught with fear.While a number of years ago the international fashion catwalk began to flounce some alternative ‘ugly models,’ that flaunting of elegance on the catwalk is, after all, still all about ‘apparel’ not ‘people.’ Therefore, Chen Hui’s works with respect to their human expressions depict by contrast the ‘strange fashion’ of a unique and irreplaceable ‘person.’ Now, aside from those models plying the catwalk who are the incarnation of some alternative brand of weirdness, models are models after all, and in choosing their figures; there are clearly-demarcated bounds beyond which one dares not stray. By comparison, in this series of works by Chen Hui, with respect to the human figures she moulds, and in contrast to the figures of models, the women have no complementary convex/concave curves and her men also lack the sought-after inverted v-shape - all have small breasts, large bellies and bloated forms, or otherwise unsightly persons of a cast not calculated to elicit the plaudits of fashion. Moreover, their movements are exaggerated, and thus project a comic and jocular air about them.

Clothing – here we must say apparel - is also one of Chen Hui’s signature features. Hairstyles – whether these are ‘blown up,’ ‘rat’s nest,’ ‘lion’s mane’ or ‘firework perm’ or whether these come dyed yellow, purple or red and orange, the only truly weird and unusual show is "strange fashion." Although misappropriation of fashion clothing is a bit of a factor, this seems cheap and weird, colored and garish. What is particularly special about apparel is the confusion between everyday wear and performance attire and this seems to be because there is no distinction drawn between them, or one might rather say that here this sort of garb is in itself “strange fashion” and that its focus is self-enticing, self-amusing and both stylish and consumptive of its own consumption and that it incorporates the Internet modern youth fashion attitude and the fiction between human comedy and everyday life. This is a new sense of realism – a nagging feeling of helplessness amid contemporary society’s games.

Realistically-depicted art is a hallmark of Chen Hui’s works; her brush-strokes are both exquisite and serene in form, particularly with regard to facial parts and bare torsos, which however incline towards an exacting technique. But this is not realism in the classical sense: Chen Hui intentionally recoils from a technique of creating human figures in a classical ambience and often paints people into the backgrounds in graduated shades, or these people are set into the background as part of a scene similar to those in famous paintings, or simply wedged into a cubicle. All human figures she models she deliberately extracts from their true habitats and then inserts them into a fictional, dramatized space, with the aim of providing a foil to the ideal human figure wrought in the image of the youth of today. We intuit from Chen Hui’s works that the human figures in her works are bursting with sincere, wistful love, because she is herself youthful or perhaps styling herself that way in her imagination, and we also have a hunch the people inhabiting her works are frisking and frolicking together with her in this latter age.

By Li Xianting