山林寂寂，无尽挣扎。这是关于异乡的视觉篇章，以可见叙事来构建异乡的创想，它追寻的是我们不曾获知的生命，是潜入我们意识的神秘暗语。我们关于自身的任何文本，都无法减少我们对自身镜像的渴望，我们关于生命的任何解读，都无法取代那开启生命之途的时刻。
章犇出生于皖南，获得那里的山原灵气；来北京求学，开始感悟艺术的门径，慢慢地步入了艺术与绘画空间的深邃拓宽中，决心让自己沉入到绘画的迷思深渊里。也正是这样的现实与历史情景，他遵从内心，不因循绘画的一般阐释，他相信绘画的生命力，从诸多的绘画语言里寻觅自己的契合点，绘画的感触之笔不是技术，是灵魂，抓住它的一瞬间，本质上就是在勾连出世界的神圣性，是让蒙昧的神性显形。对于绘画没有这样的精神理解，就无法超越绘画的技术之争、写实与非写实之争；对于绘画的理念与观念，都无法有深入的体验和理解。
章犇经历了几番的淬炼与摸索，发现他的生命张力是在线的构型中追寻绘画精神性的创造。章犇通过自己的绘画实践证明他对“异乡”的追寻，我们可以说，对于章犇，“异乡”有三层含义：
首先，章犇的绘画描绘了极具想象力的图景和世界，这是一个完全凭想象构建的世界。因此，它建构了一个异乡，超然于世俗的、充满了浪漫的异托邦景观。这些作品既不是按照连贯的顺序来画，也非按照时间先后来画，但是当它们集中在一起的时候，这些作品的视觉内容形成了内在逻辑，我们看到了章犇画面中想象世界的构成关系和象征特征。
他的一批新作品总体上营造的是悠悠远古的初始状态，如《云下》仿佛人类的初生，而《异乡的云》同样指向了生命萌生的状态；接着《缚》、《昼》、《冥》等如同人类尚在未明中，而之前的《消失的光》、《天象》、《行走的人》更像是人的行动和选择，是一种文明开始的象征。章犇最早在2010年画的《观泉》和2011年画的《岩栖谷隐图》以及2012年的《饮马图》，反而更像进入文化情景之中的场面，这些早期的绘画变成了对这两年的新作品的预告，可以看到章犇是以倒叙的方式回望人类的象征视觉，这也是他深入思考自己的视觉象征语意链的关系所必然的结果。这一类作品可以称之为“诞生与文明”；而第二类的“林木草丛”图景则是人类生存的象征语意，是一种滋养和搏斗，与第一类的作品两条线交错，互为言说。从《殇》到《迷踪》铺陈了这种生存的进程和艰难，而《那些逝去的和那将到来的》像是对整个异乡的述说和追问，当存在者存在时，是否所有的生存意义都自然产生或出现？发问者和被面对者都是互为异乡的关系，在这里，存在与生存变成矛盾和焦虑，短暂和永恒成为辩难的心中之结。对于这一发问的视觉回答则章犇在2014年画了《春分》，2015年画了《弥散的紫色》和《四月》等，可以看到存在者对生命认同的表现，是人类自我意识不断生成的过程，它们虽不是答案，但都象征着永无完结的求生的行动。章犇逐渐把不同时间点的作品串联起来，让它们相互对话，不仅使得创作具有完整性，更加促进了艺术家构建独立的图像世界的主动意识和可能性。
其次，章犇在创建自己的异乡的神话的同时，又指向欧洲的古典主义绘画。这是中国艺术史语境下的必然的一个课题和问题。欧洲绘画经过百余年的东传，被中国艺术家学习和再造，它日益成为中国的艺术表现手法，尤其是在中国的现代美术历史中，它扮演了特殊的角色，既丰富着中国绘画艺术的表现领域，同时也在改变着中国人的视觉感知力，因此对油画媒介的深究恰恰构成了一种异乡的再创造，它续接的既是欧洲传统的发展，同时也是当代再次强化绘画意义的所需，可以说，章犇努力以新的表现力去重塑它的语言价值。它在世界（异乡）的创造性发展将持续的是一种历史的努力，否则，我们看不到绘画艺术的前景，而重塑绘画的语言意义和表现内涵，则是世界的异乡人的实践行动。
再者，在横向的中国艺术的语境里和多媒介的艺术比较中，绘画遭遇到前所未有的挑战和质疑，从语言形态上到表现内涵上，一次又一次地接受考验，从文化形态上，绘画倒像是一个天外来客，谈绘画似乎是在与美术史进行较量，因为历史的强制力而导致绘画自身的局限被一次一次地放大在艺术新思想的拷问下，这就在相当的程度上，绘画成了“异乡”。在今天，依然努力将绘画提高到一种程度和能力上，越来越是具有神话般的艺术行为。章犇以此来践行自己的艺术征途，历经多次蜕变，正是向自我证明的一种精神生命力，也是重塑绘画的意志的反应。这一切都构成了“异乡”的诸多意味。
今天，在异乡的狂野里，我们是与我们对视，是与浩瀚的远古相续。这里没有许诺，没有契约，它们在还原我们自己。只有在剥离了诸多的虚相之后，才能识见万有的真实。人，是寄寓这万有间的一员，异乡不过栖居地，在通往心灵的神圣的路上，漫漫的歧途还很多。这异乡之境昭示于我们的，即是我们当向往永恒精神。章犇的视觉语意即在于此。
Silent mountain, endless struggle. This is a visual text about dystopia, which is to construct an imagination about other land through visible narrative. What it pursuit is the life that we do not have idea about, and a mysterious code dive into our consciousness. No text about ourselves can reduce our desire to the mirror image of ourselves, and no interpretation about life can replace the moment when the journey of life start.
Zhang Ben was born in the south of Anhui province, and receiving anima of the mountains there; he came to Beijing to study, and started is way to sense art, and slowly stepped into the depth and width of art and painting space, so he determined to emerge himself into the mysterious deep river of art. It is in this reality and historic situation, he followed his heart, but not a general explanation of painting, so he believes in the vitality of painting, finding the fit point of many of the painting languages, and he also believes that the feeling of painting is not a technique, but the soul, so the moment catching it essentially is to collude the sacredness of the world, and let the ignorant divinity reveal. Without such spiritual understanding about painting, he cannot go beyond the dispute of painting techniques, nor that between realistic and non-realistic painting, and not to say to have profound experience and understanding about painting idea and concept.
With times of practices and exploration, Zhang Ben has found that the tense of his life is to pursuit spiritual creation of painting in the construction of lines. Zhang Ben proved his pursuit of “Dystopia” through his own painting practices. We can say, for Zhang Ben, there are three layers of meaning of “Dystopia”:
First, Zhang Ben’s painting described the image and world extremely full of imagination, and this is a world constructed with complete imagination. Thus, it constructed a dystopia, which is a Heterotopias landscape beyond the profane and full of romance. These works are not drawn in consecutive order, nor according to the time order, but when they are together, the visual content of these works form the internal logic, and from which we see a constructing relationship and symbolic features of the world imagined.
His new work in general is to create an initial state of the ancient, for example, Below the clouds seems as the birth of the human beings, and Cloud in dystopia also directs the state of the life born; and then Tied, Dawn, Silent, and so on are like the human beings still not being enlightened, while works such as The dying light, Celestial Phenomena, Walking Man are more like men’s action and choice, and is a symbol of the start of human history. Viewing a Fountain painted as early as in 2010, Secluded Valley in 2011, and Watering Horse in 2012 are scenes like already being in culture, and these paintings in his early days become forecast of his new works these days. As we can see, Zhang Ben reviews man’s symbol vision in a flashback manner, which is the necessary consequence of his deep thinking about the relation of the semantic chain of his own visual symbol. This kind of works can be called “Birth and Civilization”, and the second kind of scenes, “Woods and Between”, can be symbol of human survive, which is nourishment and struggle, and they cross with the first kind of works as two lines and like mutual speech. From Sentimental to Get Lost, he states the process and hardship of survive, and Existing and Dying is like narrative and question about the whole dystopia: when the existence exists, are all existing significances produced naturally or do they emerge naturally? The questioner and the one to be faced are mutual dystopia to each other. Here, existence and survive become contrast and worry, temporality and eternity become a debating complex at heart. For visual reply to the questions, Zhang Ben painted Spring Equinox in 2014, Purple in Disperse and April in 2015, from which we can see the expression of the exists’ identity of life, which is the process of human self-consciousness continuously come into being, although they are not answers, they symbol endless survival acts. Zhang Ben has continuously connected works in different time, and let them talk to one another, which not only make his creation complete, but also promote the artist to build an independent world of the image of the initiative consciousness and the possibility.
The Second, Zhang Ben is creating his own myth about a dystopia, and at the same time, he refers to the European classic painting. This is an inevitable issue and problem in the context of Chinese art history. After more than a century of passing to the East, European painting was studied and reconstructed by Chinese Artists, and it increasingly become the art of China, and especially in the history of modern art in China, it plays a special role, both enriching the performing field of Chinese painting art, and changing the Chinese people's visual perception, thus profound research on oil painting is just recreating a foreign land. It is not only the development of the European tradition, but also the need to strengthen the significance of painting. It can be said that Zhang Ben is trying to reshape its linguistic value. Its creative development in the world (a dystopia) will continue this historic effort, and otherwise, we can't see the prospect of painting art. Reshaping language meaning and the connotation of painting, is the world’s practice.
The third, in the context of horizontal Chinese art and in comparison with the art of multi media, painting encounters unprecedented challenges and questions. From the form of language to the expression content, it accepts tests again and again. From the cultural forms, painting is like a visitor from outer space, so to talk about painting is like to struggle with the art history, Because of the force of the history, and the limitation of painting itself is again and again expanded and put to an interrogation in the art of new ideas, which to a considerable extent making painting an "Dystopia". Today, Still try to improve painting to certain degree and ability become more and more like a mythical art behavior. Zhang Ben practices his art journey with this, encountering times of changes, which is a kind of spiritual life that is proved to Zhang himself, and also the reaction of the will to reshape painting. All this constitutes the lots of means of “foreign land”.
Today, in the wild of a dystopia, we are looking at each other, and continuing the vast ancient. There is no commitment, no contract, and they are reducing our own. Only after stripping many virtual phases, can we see all the truth. Man, is a member living among the truth, and the dystopia is just a dwelling place, but in the sacred way to the heart, still many paths astray. What the environment of a foreign land has declared to us is that we should yearn for eternal spirit. Zhang Ben’s visual semantics lies in this.
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