赵大陆的艺术历程是很带有这个时代和这代中国艺术家命运的印记的。在过去的几十年里，他时而国内，时而国外，进进出出，走走停停。有许多了解他艺术的朋友，也有许多人对他的艺术还不熟悉。但无论是受到关注还是处于寂寞，无论在国内还是在海外，他对艺术的执著始终一如既往。经过穿越文化边界的长期行旅，几年前，他回到北京“定居”，集中地画出了一批作品，于是有了这本画集和他在中国美术馆的首次个展。

　　艺术中最可贵的永远是与艺术家切身感受最紧密的因素。赵大陆在游走之后沉静下来，集中地画着自己的记忆，这使他能够更真切地表现自我的思考与情感。特别是经过实践的沉淀之后，他的记忆得以更真实也更概括地显现出来，带有更加精神性的价值。对于这一代人来说，记忆实际上由两个部分组成，一种是集体性的，那里包括了自己和一代人的经历与体验。在赵大陆的笔下，“知青”的“兵团生活”成为一个主题，他用对“集体照”的再度叙述方式，表现了历史的生活，也再现了特定时代集体生活的状态。另一种是影响或主宰了时代与自己思想的历史人物，赵大陆用大幅肖像的形式加以表达，就是为了强调那些历史人物存在的力量，也为了强调自我与历史人物精神对话的存在状态。在我看来，赵大陆关于历史的记忆通过集体与个体这两个角度的阅读，把他自己历史的经验和当下的表现紧密地联系了起来，从而构成了从思想到视觉的阅读，这是当代艺术的一种表现形式。

　　在几十年的绘画生活中，赵大陆已形成了具象造型的风格，在此基础上，他更多考虑具象与影像的关系。他的作品借助历史旧照，但不受历史旧照的束缚，而是从中唤起记忆的视觉想象，重点是在作品中浮现历史情境和人物，因此，他的作品是当下记忆中的照片，而非历史的照片。为了强调记忆中的情景，他甚至把实物装置的手法和绘画结合在一起，让人在阅读中找到通往时间深处的路径。他在绘画上所强调的语言，也是服从于记忆的，在他的作品中，坚实的形体塑造和虚灵的气氛营造相结合，有力的笔触与流淌的油彩形成的厚薄差异，构筑起空间的深度。我甚至觉得，他在“兵团系列”里使用的宽屏幕场景和他在“肖像系列”里使用的迫近的构图，与他在电影学院学习的经历和由此形成的视觉经验有关，这也体现了赵大陆艺术的真实。无论在情感还是在艺术语言上，他都基于真实的自我，而这些都表现在他的绘画中。

　　Zhao Dalu’s artistic career epitomizes the history where the fate of Chinese artists has left its imprint. In several decades, in and out of China, he travels, stops to ponder and continues. There have been friends who know his work well, and also people who are less familiar with his craft. Whether in the spotlight or in his own loneliness, in China or overseas, his dedication to his art has never wavered. Having journeyed across cultural borders, he returned a few years ago to “live” in Beijing, whereupon, with devoted energy, he has created a series of works. This led to his first personal exhibition in the Beijing Art Gallery and this album.

　　The most precious thing in art is the features that illustrate the artist’s inner feelings. After his long journey, Zhao Dalu gathered his mind and heart in peace, and in his contemplation he found his inner self; he gathered his creative energy and painted his memory, distilled by his life and truthfully conceptualised, which conveys a spiritual meaning. For his generation, memory has two attributes. One is collective: reflecting his and his contemporaries’ experience. Under his brush, the “Corps series” of the “educated youth” is one theme, narrated in his “group photos”, displaying life from history, and the peculiar collective state of life of the time. Another is the historical figure, who dictates the era, and impacts the thinking of the artist’s period. Large portraits are used to accentuate the dialogue between the dominant force by this historical figure and the artist’s inner self. In my view, Zhao Dalu’s own memory through collective and personal perspectives connects his historic experience with the present day, thereby migrating thought to visual image, which is an expression of modern art.

　　In his decades of painting, Zhao Dalu has established his style of realism. With his work built on this foundation, he believes in painting that captures the link between photographic images and realism. His work, borrowed from historical photos, is not constrained by images from earlier times but brings visual imaginations from memory to recreate figures in their historical surroundings. His work, therefore, is photography from present memory but is not historical photography. To illustrate the historical ambiance from memory, he uses a technique combining realistic objects with painting to allow his audience in their visual reading to search a path in the depth of the time. His language on the easel is subordinate to this memory. In his painting, he merges solid images of figures with misty background atmosphere, using powerful brush strokes combined with variations of colour and thickness of paint, thereby creating a depth of space. In my view, the wide-screen effect and close-up composition in his “Corps series” and his portrait series is influenced by his visual experience from his training in the film institute. This reflects once more his artistic honesty in both his emotional expression and artistic language, built on his honest inner self.