正是在文艺复兴时期的蛋彩画（Tempera）中寻找到的灵感，使艾安的作品表现了“城中之城”的令人迷惑的一面；它然是一个只存在于我们意识中的超现实世界，但是却使现实都市生活的各个层面增色不少。艾安描绘着最没有时髦意味的场景，也丝毫不去迎合成功或流行的口味。他以最大的自由投入创作，仿佛艺术世界中的角逐，人际间的琐事全然与他无关。一旦处于画室之中，艾安就身临他的微缩世界之中，独自在自己“内城”的许许多多无名建筑物中穿行。

　　当今艺术世界的情境和北京艺术环境的日常流变通常使得年青艺术家们在评论的影响和某些潮流和话题的压力下显得过于脆弱，但正是在这种情境和流变中，艾安一直忠于他的技巧—一古典的、不同寻常的技巧。他的作品记录了他所追求的冲动，即用内心的奇想去撞击观画者。

　　艾安在他人民解放军的生涯中渡了十年的青少年时代，也正是在那里开始了艺术创作。1986年退出现役后，成了一名普通公民，他考入了中央美术学院学习，直到1990年丛民间美术系毕业。这二十多件作品无声的显示出艾安自1993年以来的创作历程。

　　艾安的每一幅作品都耗时月余乃至数月。同样，每一件作品也迫使观众用大量的时间去把握细节和象征的微妙世界，从而体验作品中所有的谶语和暗示。在创作中，艾安用十四到十五世纪意大利绘画大师的技法语言传达出普遍存在于我们内心的现代的疏离、孤独和荒凉，从而感觉到都市中的空荡，以及这种异城气氛带来的恐惧感。同时，也看到那些无法捉摸的，并不存在的面孔，感觉到超越都市企图的无力感。古典主义和象征性现实主义的手法，勾勒出一片冷漠的自然景观：冬天的沙漠、非人性化的迷墙。空荡的城市似乎隐喻着我不合时宜的存在，就像他画中荒诞的穿过建筑物，侵占到街道上的羊群一样。雨衣使人们可以遮避住自己的面孔，在进犯和动击之下存活，但同样也显得冷漠和韬晦。同时，身体的裸露让我们想起强烈侵犯之下无助的柔弱，这正如同我们暴露在现实环境下的情景。街道上一再重复出现的洞传达出不定与不安的心情。这些洞可能是对未知世界的暗示，也可能是我们逃避不安和与人沟通得到舒适的唯一通道。

　　日复一日，艾安从他的画室窗户望去，在沉默寂静中观察着周遭景物，用作品去照外界冻结了的生命。

　　Searching for sources of inspiration from the tempera painting of the Renaissance style, Ai An's works reflect the enigma of the"inner city", a surrealistic world that only exists in our minds, but which colors our everyday interactions in the real urban world. In this time-less context, Ai paints scenes without reference to fashion, or to the pursuit of success or popularity. He acts with total in-dividuality, as though the art world with all of its intricacy and frivolity is of no consequence to him. Once behind the closed door of his studio, Ai stands amidst his miniature universe, alone within the anonymous buil- dings of his inner city.

　　Ai An has kept faithful to his technique, a classical and unusual technique within the context of today's art world and the daily flux of Beijing's art scene, where young artists are perhaps excessively vulnerable to critics' influences, and to the social pressures of certain trends and subjects, His works testify to the only impulse he follows：one initiated solely by the caprice of his own mind.

　　Ai spent ten years of his adolescence in the People,s Liberation Army, where he first started painting. In 1986 he returned to civilian life after his service, and arrived in the Capital to take the entrance examination for the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He graduated from its Folk Art Department, in 1990. These twenty works, meticulously executed, reveal a process that first began in 1994. Each of Ai An's painting takes several months to complete. Each work will also take time for the viewer to penetrate in the subtle universe of details and symbols. in order to experience all its mystery and ambiguity. Ai,s adopted language of the Italian masters of the 14th and 15th centuries serves perfectly in his works to transmit the modern isolation, the solitude and desolation that we all keep within ourselves. The viewer is forced to perceive the horror of the cities. the emptiness of their purealienation; to look into non-existent faces in imper-meable shells, to feel the paralysis before the last leap through the urban vacuum. Classicism and symbolic realism take the shape of forsaken landscapes, winter deserts, walls of inhuman discomfort, ghost towns where we became an awkward presence much like the lambs that absurdly penetrate the buildings and invade the sidewalk in Ai An,s paintings. The raincoats allow citizens without faces to safely survive aggressions, but also to avoid and become impenetrable to emotions. In other works, the nakedness of the bodies reminds us of the intense vulnerability to which we are exposed in the here and now. The repetitive presence of holes on the pavement stresses the sensation of uncertainty and disquiet. These holes may be an allusion to the world of the un-known. Or they may be the only path through which we can escape or communicate.

　　Day after day, Ai An observes his neighborhood from his studio window and reflects in his works the frozen life outside, drenched with silence.

Inma G. puy