当女人恋爱了…… When a women falls in love

忧伤的女人（写生）

The Winter of Paris: Blue Heart

系列 Series:《冬日巴黎》The Winter of Paris/《莫莉花色》The fantasy

Material: 油画画布 Oil painting on canvas

Size: 60x80cm

Date: 2017-2021

绘画 Artist: lilyma马莉

地点: 北京Beijing/ 莫莉工作室 Moli Studio

Model 模特: Lingxia 玲霞

When a women falls in love

Part 1

If we go by this title, there are indeed many related artworks.

Mostly, I see myself as a third person observing the changes in my state of being in love.

There is also Lingxia, my sister, who posed as a model and I painted a few portraits of her.

At that time, we were talking and drinking, but it wasn’t enough, so I painted as well.

By the middle or end of this month, she should be back from Paris. The last time I saw her was in early December 2017, around the 3rd. She and professor Alexandre del Perugia took me to Charles de Gaulle Airport. It has been more than five years since we last parted.

We made plans to meet alone and maybe even do some portrait paintings again.

She has been living in France for a long time. Oh, no, she settled in France. She is natural and elegant as a model. Besides the few nude models in art school, I only painted Lingxia few times.

I am not familiar with others, and everyone is reserved. Plus, I don’t have any emotional attachment with others. So without any sense of obligation, I don’t feel like documenting them.

Especially when we get into a lively conversation, I pick up the brush and do a sketch or two. Besides talking about love between women, she and I also discuss art, dance, performance, music, martial arts, and other topics.

I paint nude figures with Teacher Bao Lin at Tsinghua University Academy of fine arts. My other girlfriends discuss film and television dramas, society, and philosophy, but they are not comfortable posing nude for me.

Of course, there are other reasons as well.

Didn’t I mention it last time? Male artists paint women, and female artists also paint women. I am not a male artist, but I am very familiar with the female body.

I used to practice martial arts, opera, and dance when I were young, so we are quite familiar with the body. In addition, my long-term study of performance has given me a solid understanding of the body’s behavioral language.

Most of my models are either myself or the women I imagine.

Lingxia is an actress, dancer, and martial artist. She created “Zen Dance” and teaches these classes in France. Over the years, she has gained insights and combined them with Alexandre del Perugia’s performance studies, which has brought surprising interpretations and understandings of the body. The three of us often discuss the Western region, martial arts, dance, acrobatics, and Western performance from multiple perspectives when we were in Paris. We each speak a different language: Chinese, French, and English, and we are not fluent in any of them. Later, there was another language called body language, which made communication borderless.

(Alexandre del Perugia is a stage artist, performing arts educator, theater scholar, and “midwife” in the French performing arts industry. He has trained actors like Juliette Binoche, Jean Reno, etc.)

Understanding, this is the reason.

Tao Hui is a good actress and dancer, and she also has a good figure. Unfortunately, we rarely meet in these years. I can only paint a few photos of her. Tao Hui and I have been friends for 20 years, and to be honest, her figure has long been imprinted in my mind.

I also paint men, mainly my loved one. But for many years, I haven’t painted any.

No love, no one.

Back to the topic: A woman in love is truly a great subject to paint.

At that time, both Lingxia and I had our own concerns.

I painted “Blue Heart” 60×80 cm. She was holding a wine glass, sitting on the sofa in my living room in Beijing.

That day, we also ate a lot of duck dishes. She couldn’t get them in France, and we drank heavily with spicy food.

By the time I starting this painting, I was almost dizzy.

That day, the painting took shape. It wasn’t until 2021 that I finally completed this “Sad Woman”. Now I am counting on my fingers, from May 5th, 2017, to February 22nd, 2021, a span of four years. Hahaha~

Ah, I found a record in my phone’s notes:

May 5, 2017, 12:25 am

I was a little drunk.

I said to my sister, “Let’s paint you in oil!”

She asked, “What color do you want to use?”

I said, “Green!”

“A green person?!” she asked.

I replied, “Yes! Dark and light, only two colors!”

If I hadn’t checked my notes, I would have forgotten that I wanted to paint a green person. In the following years, I forgot about this original intention, and the woman is no longer green.

How many records do I have in total?! I will slowly discover it myself.

There should be millions of words, most of which I haven’t looked back at. I’ll find them when I need them.

2023.7.13 Afternoon lilyma马莉

Excerpt from  Moli’s Diary from Moli’s Heart

当女人恋爱了……（写生）

The Winter of Paris

When a woman falls in love…（Sketch）

系列 Series:《冬日巴黎》The Winter of Paris

Material: Charcoal pencil 炭笔

Size: 39x27cm

Date: 2017.5.8

绘画 Artist: lilyma马莉

地点: 北京 Beijing

Model 模特: Lingxia 玲霞

当女人恋爱了……（写生）

The Winter of Paris

When a woman falls in love…（Sketch）

系列 Series:《冬日巴黎》The Winter of Paris

Material: Charcoal pencil 炭笔

Size: 39x27cm

Date: 2017.5.8

绘画 Artist: lilyma马莉

地点: 北京 Beijing

Model 模特: Lingxia 玲霞

当女人恋爱了……（写生）

The Winter of Paris

When a woman falls in love…（Sketch）

系列 Series:《冬日巴黎》The Winter of Paris

Material: Charcoal pencil 炭笔

Size: 39x27cm

Date: 2017.4.29

绘画 Artist: lilyma马莉

地点: 北京 Beijing

Model 模特: Lingxia 玲霞

When a women falls in love

Part 2

When a woman falls in love, she becomes so anxious and fearful. 

She becomes sensitive, fragile, and full of tenderness and sweetness.

This morning, I watched several episodes of the documentary series “The Blue Planet” and got lost in the wonders of underwater creatures…

Last night, before going to sleep, I watched the movie “The Planets” again. I watched it many times these years. Each time i found out many new things to understand. Before falling asleep, I carefully finished watching the episode about “Jupiter the Godfather” and started watching the next episode about Saturn, slowly drifting off…

As I watch, my thoughts take flight:

If in 5.5 billion years, the sun grows old and becomes a red giant, Earth would likely end up like Venus, burned to ashes… And I wouldn’t be see it.

Jupiter is amazing! In the past several billion years, it has cleared away many threats for Earth.

Both Jupiter and Saturn experience diamond rain… We sell diamonds for such a high price, but the pressure on those gas giants must be immense, compressing matter into diamonds and then turning them into liquid and gas…

If it weren’t for Jupiter scattering the material that would have formed the planet Ceres… Ceres might have evolved life, there are so many salt deposits where water has dried up…

Speaking of salt, how is the salt we eat nowadays produced?!

Will Saturn’s moon Titan become another Earth in 5.5 billion years? Would the species that evolve there be green, in a world full of toxic gas?!

The world is so marvelous! It will never be enough time for me to learn.

After those thoughts, I forgot about the stories of women falling in love. Love, compared to all these wonders, is actually quite boring.

The world of wonders is full of surprises, while the world of love is full of fright. There’s too much of this, too little of that, having or not having, what I’ve given and what you haven’t… It’s so tangled.

But love, it’s a topic. It’s a topic for humanity, a topic among women.

Just a moment ago, I was talking to my friend Mengyuan who living in Shanghai and told her to take her son to see the movie “Chang An” as soon as possible. In the afternoon, I’m going to watch it for the second time with Lv Xin. She wants to take her husband to see it, saying that he will definitely be able to analyze various historical details with her and feel proud.

It reminded me of how I used to talk so much about history, I wonder if it’s a lot of pressure for men.

Then Mengyuan and I started talking about the underwater world. She hopes, and is willing to believe, that the origin of humanity came from the sea, just like in the movie “The Shape of Water.”

I said, “Ah! Yes, 3.5 billion years ago, ancient bacteria should be the source of all life. We all emerged from the water, we are all “aquatic products”. Water is the origin of life.”

Can you believe it? It’s early in the morning and I’m discussing these things with her, Mengyuan. The topic of body drawing can’t be avoided.

Lingxia is a creature of love, a fusion of China and France. She is did study body language and willing to understand more. I am also willing to study more of our body. All of this is related to my previous and current professions.

Lingxia once said to me, “You are the ‘Love Seeking Cult’ founder.”

After nearly six years, I realized that I am my own third party of my life (a third perspective observer, not a third party in a relationship!)

I (my soul) look down from high above at myself in the human world, immersed in emotions, love, joy, anger, sadness. It’s like watching a play, with curtains closing here and new ones opening there.

The emotions of those women I paint, hehe, which one of them is not me?!

Or perhaps, which one of them is truly me?!

2023.7.14 Morning lilyma马莉

Excerpt from  Moli’s Diary from Moli’s Heart