与何红蓓交谈很简单，一支烟或是一杯咖啡的时间似乎就已足够。因为，她首先会说自己不善言辞，可寥寥数语总会让人感觉她有一肚子的话，却欲言又止。这时你会忽然醒悟的是——原来“她的画”代替了“她的话”。的确，何红蓓的画具有一种强烈的“自我倾诉”特征。
　　何红蓓是典型的川美绘画风格体系中的一员，这一点从第一眼看到她的画时就可以清晰地判断出来：扎实的技法功底、钟摆于超写实与图像绘画间的造型样式、情绪化的表现特征可以依稀看到八十年代以来四川画派的影子，从简历上得知何红蓓自1984年到1992年，从附中到大学受业于四川美术学院，后远赴美国。今天，我们再谈起川派画家都不时充满敬意，不仅仅是因为他们拥有传承有序的风格与抱团儿的精神，更为重要的是，这其间的每一位画家所具备的真诚而又具体的个体认知，也正因为如此，使他们不至于淹没于集体之中。何红蓓绘画的独特性在于其懵懂但真切的女性主义关怀意识与自身经历的水乳交融，正如交谈及作品的呈现中她总是将“女性的困境”作为表达的中心，同时一种始于关怀却陷于矛盾的心态清晰可见，如将“女性主义”理解为“大女子主义”，并一再声称自己认同女人的社会身份，但现实的经历却使其内心充满压抑与纠结等。诚如法国女性主义者西蒙•德•波伏娃所述“女人之为女人与其说是天生的，不如说是形成的”，而我认为这一形成过程之于何红蓓，确是其真实经历所产生的个体经验触碰于社会固有文化体系后的体味与反思的结果，这一点我们从她的作品中可以清晰地感受到。
　　仔细观察何红蓓的创作脉络，我们发现其风格发展十分契合黑格尔的“正—反—合”规律：早期作品是典型的西南绘画“生命流”，带着集体主义的理想进行唯美与梦幻的建构，我们从中依稀可以看到夏加尔的人物造型与契里柯的梦幻造境；到“书信系列”与“倾倒垃圾系列”时，我们却发现作者完全走向另一个方向，冷灰调子成为画面主调，压抑与痛感成为画面呼之欲出的气息，“书信系列”中原本甜蜜的情书与被塞进封闭狭小的空间（如抽屉、花瓶、浴缸等）的女性并置，巨大的视觉压抑感与图像隐喻清晰地对应着现实中女性情感与生活中的真实际遇；而“垃圾系列”中各种莫名与异质的物体（如金属工具、果壳、昆虫、胶囊、针线等）勾连着纠结与矛盾溢出逐渐僵化为纸质的女性头脑，她说这些东西都代表着社会对女性的束缚，因此要统统倾倒掉，个中象征意味不言而喻。此一时期，我们发现画家及作品的气息与情感表达更为接近超现实主义画家纳兰霍的精神隐喻与女性主义者弗里达的自我观照与表达，即便是傍观者也能瞬间感受到一种呼之欲出的切肤之痛。还好何红蓓走到了第三阶段即我们看到的“风景系列”，如果说前两个阶段一正一反，这一阶段便为一合。她将过往的一正一反两种情态融于整一的理想建构中：我们看到艺术家将主题由人物转移至风景，由主观之情转换为客观之物，肆意的情绪凝固为带有镜象质感的景物与环境，不难看出当代影像绘画对她产生了一定影响，其营造的像是镜子中的优美风景，游离于真实与幻象之间的心象世界，近景灿烂的花、树、昆虫亦或人物等局部的呈现不再作为“倾倒垃圾系列”与“情书系列”中带有强烈的主观情绪的道具存在，而是与远景亦幻亦真的天地形成一种对比性共存，将每一位旁观之人置于冷静的他者之位，来体味这种虚幻与理性矛盾交织之境。显然何红蓓正逐渐从自我中走出来，正如其所说，前两个阶段已经过去了，过去的风格不会再重复，此种坚决的态度也令其从“第二性”的社会身份中逐渐抽身开来，去寻找与营建一个属于她所认同的女性空间。
　　看过何红蓓近期的作品，不由得让人想起人类精神导师柏拉图两千多年前在《理想国》中所说的那樣“从你的洞穴里走出来吧，世界正如同一座花园等着你。”

武洪滨  艺术学博士 批评家 中央美院博士后
2012年3月于中央美院

From "Looking at a gift horse" to the "Mirror Garden"
- The feminist vision of Ms. He Hongbei
By Dr. Wu Hongbin
Dr. in Arts, critics, post-doctoral fellow at the Central Academy of Fine Arts
March 2012 at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China

He Hongbei holds very simple conversation, a cigarette or a cup of coffee's time seems to be sufficient. Because in the beginning she seems not talkative, a few words later one will always feel that she has a stomach-full of words, but hesitantly to come out. Then you will suddenly realize that "her paintings" take place of "her words". Indeed, He Hongbei paints with a strong "self-talk" feature.
He Hongbei is a typical painter with the unique style of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts (SAFA) since 1980's: a solid grounding in the painting techniques, the pendulum between the surrealistic images and traditional painting style, the moody characteristics. Indeed Ms. He Hongbei received education at SAFA from 1984 to 1992. And she went to the United States afterwards in 1996. Today, we usually think of painters from SAFA with great respect, not only because of their rich artistic tradition and orderly progressive style, but also more importantly, each SAFA artist pursuing art in its unique individual sincerity, so that not to be submerged in the collective being of SAFA style. He Hongbei paintings' uniqueness lies in its naive yet real awareness of feminist concern with its own experience of harmony. As her words and artwork presented, she always puts "the plight of women" in the center of expression, but the trapped ambivalence, though originated from caring, is clearly visible. She considers "feminism" as "the big woman", and has repeatedly claimed to agree with the woman's social status, but the reality and past experience led to her heart-full of repression and tangled feeling. As the French feminist Simone De Beauvoir stated the woman as a woman is not so much born, as is formed in society, I think this formation process for He Hongbei was indeed based on real individual experience in the existing social cultural system, which is clearly reflected in her artwork.
With careful observation of He Hongbei's creative context, we found that the development of style fit nicely Hegel's "forward - reverse - together" rule. The early works are typical of the "Life School" in Southwest painting, being aesthetic and fantasizing with a collective ideals, and can be seen faintly the Chagall human character and Chirico's dreamy background; In "Painted Letter " and "dumping garbage" series, we found that the author completely went another direction, with cold gray tone becoming the screen melody, repression and pain ready to jump out of the paintings. The sweet love letters and the women crammed into a small closed space (such as drawers, vases, bathtubs, etc.), a great visual of oppression and image metaphor, clearly corresponds to the emotional life of women in reality; And in "garbage" series, a variety of strange and heterogeneous objects (such as metal tools, nut shell, insects, capsule, needle and thread, etc.) tangled with contradictions overflow from rigid female paper head. She said these things represented the shackles of society on women, and thus should be dumped all out, as is symbolic and self-evident. During this period, we find the emotional expression of the artist and her work resembled the spirit of the Surrealist painter Naranjo's metaphor and feminist Frida's self-reflection and expression, so that nearby observers can feel instantly the one kind of painful experience ready to come out of the paintings. Fortunately, He Hongbei reached the third stage - the landscape series. If the first two phases are positive and negative, this third phase will be cohesive. She merged positive and negative into a whole ideal construct: we see the artist's theme transferred from the figures to the scenery, from subjective feeling to objective beings, wanton mood solidified into landscape of mirror-like texture. It can be seen that the contemporary image painting had an impact on her, to create such beautiful scenery in the mirror, the imaginative world wandering between reality and illusion, the partial rendering of a brilliant close-up view of flowers, trees, insects or figure is no longer a prop in "dumping garbage" and "Love Letter" series with a strong subjective emotional existence, but becomes a contrastive coexistence with the realistic and dreamy background of heaven and earth in the distance. Viewers can coolly savor this interwoven realm of fantasy and rational contradictions. Obviously He Hongbei comes out gradually from self indulgence. In her words, the first two phases have passed, the style of the past will not repeat. With such a resolute attitude, she departs gradually from the social identity of the "secondary sex" withdraw, to find and construct a feminine space based on her recognition.
After viewing He Hongbei's recent artworks, one cannot help but remember what Plato, the human spiritual mentor, put in the "Utopia" two thousand years ago: "Come out from your cave, the world is waiting for you like a garden".