In 1993 Xuhong Shang began his Mountain Series, a body of work in which self-imposed parameters would be strictly observed and a carefully controlled number of variables would be successively introduced. The black-and-white palette is perhaps the most obvious constant that Shang adopted, but the narrowly rectangular format of his canvases has been an equally distinguishing characteristic of these works. Sometimes vertically and sometimes horizontally aligned, the shape of the canvas makes subtle reference to traditional Chinese scroll paintings, a ramification that is particularly relevant to the representational imagery that Shang incorporates into his compositions. Appropriating the style of classical Chinese landscapes, he renders it as a ghostly inversion, like a photographic negative in which black replaces white as a ground for faint intimations of the misty crags, gnarled trees and meandering rivers of literati painting. To heighten the intangibility of this abstract imagery, Shang paints his grounds in a combination of wax and a black duflat pigment that approximates the capacity of velvet to absorb rather than reflect light. The effect is a visual lushness, an illusionistic textural opulence that Shang cultivates as part of a strategy to seduce the viewer into involvement with the conceptual content.
一九九三年, 商徐宏開始創作 “山”系列. 這個系列繪畫作品充滿嚴謹的气勢, 并包含著細心設定的變化. 作品中最明顯的元素, 也許是他採用的黑白及單純的色調. 此外, 畫面的長窄形狀, 或直向或橫向, 有著明顯的傳統中國挂軸及卷軸畫的暗示, 而中國傳統的書畫正好与商徐宏所描繪的意象不無關系. 他借用中國古代山水畫的風格, 但以黑替白作為畫作的底色, 呈現一個有如攝影底片而且气氛幽幻的影象, 而繪于畫中的景物則隱隱酷似文人畫里霧中的危嚴及扭曲的樹木和蜿蜒的河流. 商徐宏用蠟和顏料混合用于畫面上造成一种仿如絲絨的畫面效果, 并讓畫面產生一种吸光效果, 從而加強畫中意象的無形感及深遠感, 從而使畫面不僅在視覺上有著更為丰富的效果, 更添上一層如幻的質感. 這也正是這個系列吸引觀眾投入作品思想內容的一种視覺方法.
