After one month of secret work, the huge mural we invited Zhan Pan to paint is finally finished! It is a dreamlike underwater world where dreams and reality tease each other. For Zhan Pan, guitarist and lead singer of Gar, it was a wonderful painting experience. And for the audience, it’s an absolutely stunning piece. Now let’s have a look at the mural, with some explanation from Zhan Pan.
The Concept
SCHOOL is a brand new electronic music bar, built by Billy and Liu Hao, located between Yong He Gong and An Ding Meng. There is a lot of old style Beijing architecture near by, and the flavor of wine is hidden around every corner. SCHOOL is tucked away in a HU TONG, people would probably miss it if they are just passing by. So I want this mural to attract people’s attention, as well as waking up the people in the bar.
I first landed on a topic: Underwater World. Then I made many sketches. In the painting, what I want to show is an unreal world where imagination coexists with reality and the crossover between them overthrowing logic. You can read the whole picture as a dreamland: a slogan projected from the big fish makes the clown-like head lose his mind. A group of jellyfish, which look like mushrooms, are swimming in yellow light around the clown. He wears special swimming goggles and swims ahead, his path crossing a pyramid and a canyon. Discovered by the light of the “Almighty eye”, he gets hit in the face with reality. His blood splashes out of his, but the dream of freedom will not stop, the nosebleed becomes some birds that fly away.
The Work
Ideas come at any moment and that’s why I don’t like to sketch an entire piece first. I hope that the atmosphere and the music can inspire me to create something unique. This way, the work can stand for the combination of the place’s character and my subjective creation.
The wall is too large for me. I’ve never worked on such a huge surface. Positioning is very hard. I always make mistakes and have to revise several times. I used up a very big eraser. Another difficulty is choosing my pens. I am used to painting in permanent marker, I don’t like filling in large areas with paint pens, but the picture is too big so I have to compromise some of the marker brushwork.
Many surprises come when overcoming difficulties. For example, some of my mistakes became pictures connected to the finished piece.
The path from the clown’s eyes twists and turns until it loops back into the hole of the real world air conditioner of the bar, bringing the imaginary and real world together.
What’s more, there are so many interesting details. For example, the broken deer antlers near the clown’s ear and the bubbles from the air tubes. These details enrich the whole space, covering the real world door so that visitors can’t find the entrance.
The Final Piece
The final work is actually stunning. After all, the area of the wall is so large that people can’t find the door. Secondly, I believe drunk people will throw up after seeing the picture, ha ha. I felt so empty when I finished the work, just like when I handed in the paper for the art school entrance exams. It was a big loss. I don’t know whether there’s a special result waiting for me. But I felt better after a few days.
