在当今照相机与图像泛滥的情况下，我们很难用“摄影师”三个字来定位刘韧的身份与工作。镜头、焦距、光影这些元素只是她创作的辅助工具。重头戏在她坐在电脑前用想象力表达情感与观念甚至将自我融入其中的过程里。我们可以称她为当代艺术家，或技术化的称她为图片艺术家。
电脑与软件是镜头的延伸，是她将现实与虚拟混合的魔力之手，当然也是她的道具。相由心生，心是她创作的源泉，用敏锐细腻的心去感受周围的人和事，当然还有自己的隐秘世界，是她创作的原点。刘韧的作品整体呈现出一种梦幻气质，梦的意境出现在她所有的作品中，可以说她是一个“梦依赖者”。在刘韧的图像世界里，一切是都完美与永恒的，这才是她的现实，而我们所谓的平庸与充满缺憾的现实世界，只是她身外的一个表象。
也许是身为女性的缘故，她的作品里大都有云与水，这些柔软，纯洁，自由，流动与包容的象征物象。这些元素与其他所有传统的、现代的，本土的、外来的，真实的、臆造的文化形式、形象、符号，在刘韧的作品中以一种自由的、狂欢式的糅合，不断挑衅着观者的视觉观看经验和想象力。
在刘韧创作初期的“完美生活”系列里，她把想象中的城市生活放置在她臆造的净土之上，喧嚣的物质追逐被飘渺的云与水所淹没，禅味十足。在“某日某地”、“回忆”、“我们”、“天国”等作品中，刘韧将更加个人化的思想与行为通过摄影形式表现出来，俨然是她内心世界的后花园。在这个后花园里，生活的情景和片段，成长的记忆，忧郁，怀旧，对逝去爱情痕迹的纪念，对消逝的青春的怅惘都如花盛放。这是一个私人剧场，梦幻把一切遗迹都赋予了美，甚至是炫目的美。这些私人化的痕迹与Nan Goldin，Nobuyoshi Araki 或者中国青年亚文化的私摄影的区别在于，刘韧在这里表现的完全是她的内心世界，这内心世界就是她的现实，刘韧的个人形象在这些摄影作品中出现，但已经不具备艺术家世界之外的现实现场性，这是一种梦幻化了的自言自语，一种私人化的诗意生存态度。
在更新一些的作品中，刘韧从这些沉溺于自我情感与梦幻美感的 “现身说法”中跳出，她的作品日益倾向于假别人之嘴来实现交流的诉求。在“游园”、“惊梦”、“梦游”、“牡丹亭”、“寻梦”这些作品中，中国传统的昆曲文化、人物形象、故事情节、艺术形式以及历经岁月被赋予中国文化象征意义的符号化物品被数码摄影与电脑技术兼收并蓄在一起，刘韧从作品中隐身，园林、昆曲、故宫、天坛、石榴、柿子、暖水瓶、斑马、仙鹤、熊猫、鸳鸯等动物、超人、多啦A梦(机器猫)、玩具木马、摇滚乐器等粉墨登场。刘韧运用中国宋代绘画的图式将她“人化了的自然”自由的挥洒到图片中去，这些形象原本具有特定的文化符号化意义，在这个新的语义环境中变得模糊和不可捉摸，并与刘韧的私人世界发生着千丝万缕的联系。这种自由的精神是中国传统艺术自古以来崇尚的道家亲近自然，寄情山水，且不追名逐利的出尘洒脱，而讲究善与美的统一，甚至天人合一。这种自由精神经由刘韧混杂以当代艺术观念性的表达方法，形成了一个全新的，集古典，梦幻，时尚，真实于一体的话语场。用刘韧的话说，“这是我作为当代人，在传统与现代、历史与当下间寻求平衡的努力，是传统人文精神的当代表述。”
在“牡丹亭”中，她对美好爱情的向往，女性的春思，都假柳梦梅与杜丽娘之间的千古佳话托出，而因为刘韧的隐身，她的内心世界似乎与观者更多了一层隔膜，气泡将她心目中圣洁的爱情保护了起来，也把自己的内心世界保护了起来，传达出一种欲说还休的凄美与无奈。
在“寻梦”系列作品中，梦境变得冷起来，从一种春情荡漾、热情美好的真转向幽冷的、超现实的真，这是一种更加温柔的想象吗？从“梦游”中大张旗鼓的“捏造”真实，到“寻梦”里的冷峻的、变幻莫测的真实，刘韧指鹿为马的境界已近炉火纯青，“花非花，雾非雾”的意境在“寻梦”中表现的淋漓尽致。
刘韧一再提醒我们，我们看到的永远只是表象。
A Dreamer’s Variations
Xu Chongbao
Nowadays we are surrounded by cameras and photos, and in such a context we can hardly use the word “photographer” to define Liu Ren and her work. Lenses, focus and shadows are just instruments that she uses in the creative process. The most important part of this process comes when she sits in front of her computer and uses her imagination too express feelings and ideas to the extent that she melts herself with the creative process. We can call her a contemporary artist, or more technically, a photo artist.
Computer and software are the extension of her camera lenses, they are like magic hands that help her to mix real and virtual together, and they are her prop. The source of her creation is her heart from which all the images come out; she perceives people and things around her through her sensitive heart. Of course her own private world is the source for her creation. Liu Ren works are dreamy. Dream imagery is present in all of her works and we can actually call her a “dreamer”. In the world the she creates through images, everything is perfect and eternal, and this world is actually her reality. What is commonly referred to as reality, ordinary and full of regret, is no more than a mere representation of the outside world to her.
Perhaps this has something to do with her being a female artist: in most of her works we can find clouds and water, images that are symbols of tenderness, purity, freedom, they are flowing and forgiving. These elements are mixed with symbols, images and cultural patterns that are traditional and contemporary, native and foreign, real and imaginary; in Liu Ren’s works they are freely and carnival like mixed together, constantly challenging the visual observation experience and the imagination of the audience.
In the series “Perfect Life”, one of earlier works, she places her imaginary city life in the pure land of creation; the noisy chase after material possessions is inundated by misty clouds and water, with a clear taste for Zen aesthetics. In works like ‘Some Day Some Where’, ‘Memory’, ‘Us’ and ‘Heaven’ Liu Ren expresses her individualist thoughts and attitudes through photographic representation, they are like the backyard garden of her inner world.. In this backyard garden scenes and pieces of life, memories of when she was growing up, melancholy, reminiscences, commemoration of the traces of past love, and listlessness about the youth already gone all blossom like flowers. This is a private theatre; dream endows these vestiges with beauty, a glaring beauty. Private traces in Liu Ren’s works are different from the ones in works by Nan Goldin, Nobuyoshi Araki and private shoots that are part of the Chinese youth sub-culture, and this difference lies in the fact that she is representing her inner world. This inner world his her own reality, and we can see Liu Ren herself and her personality through these photos. However, these works do not bear any sense of reality, they do not represent the outside world surrounding the artist, and they are a dreamy soliloquy, a personal poetic attitude toward existence.
In more recent works, Liu Ren abandoned both her indulgence in personal feelings and her self-focused, dreamy aesthetics, and gradually turned to another way to express herself with her works: she starts to communicate trough other characters and objects. In works such as ‘Touring the Garden’, ‘Waking Up from a Dream’, ‘Dream Tour’, ‘Peony Pavilion’, ‘Seeking Dream’ appear elements of the traditional Kunqu Opera culture: characters, story lines, forms of art as well as elements that in the years have become symbols of the Chinese culture are integrated through digital photography and computer technology. In these works, Liu Ren hides herself: gardens, Kunqu Opera characters, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, pomegranates, persimmons, thermos bottles, zebras, cranes, pandas, mandarin ducks, Superman, Doraemon, rocking horses, rock musical instruments, all these subjects put the make up on and come on the stage. Liu Ren uses the Song Dynasty painting style, the “humanization of nature” freely sprinkles in her works, all the images she uses have a clear cultural and symbolic meaning, but in this new semantic setting they become blurred and intangible, and they share all kind of connections with Liu Ren’s inner world. This free spirit is the one advocated by the ancient Chinese tradition and particularly by the Taoist, who recommended a close contact with nature to the extent to abandon oneself to nature, ideals that are the antithesis of the pursuit for fame and material wealth, and instead stress on the correspondence of goodness and beauty, and even the union of heaven and human beings. In Liu Ren’s works, this free spirit is mingled with contemporary art conceptual expressive means, and creates a discourse field that is in the meantime brand-new, classic, dreamy, fashionable and authentic. In Liu Ren’s words: “As a contemporary person, this is my effort to search for an equilibrium between tradition and modernity, history and present; it is the contemporary expression of the spirit of traditional culture.”
In the Peony Pavilion series her yearn for perfect love and feminine long for romance are expressed through the timeless love story between Liu Mengmei and Du Liniang. Liu Ren hides herself, and a new layer is put between her inner world and the audience. A bubble protects the sacred love enshrined deep in her heart and her innermost feelings, and expresses a beautiful sadness and helplessness, otherwise indescribable.
In the series “Seeking Dream”, the dream turns cold: the longing for love, the passion give way to a cold, surreal reality. Is this a sweeter fantasy? From the exuberant “fake” reality of ‘Dream Tour’ to the cold and unpredictable reality of ‘Seeking Dream’, Liu Ren has perfected her skills in the manipulation and distortion of reality, and the artistic conception that states‘A flower is not a flower, and haze not haze alike’ is fully expressed in her ‘Seeking Dream’.
Liu Ren keeps reminding us that everything we see is just a representation.
