'They will be reminded'

In local teen portraits, Chinese artist captures the toll of violence

Liu Xiaodong's painting, unraveled on the floor of a studio at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, is an innocuous-looking mural of nine teenagers in youthful poses, casting neutral gazes toward emptiness. A cute, black dog stands on its hind feet between two of the teens, looking as if it wants to play.

But the theme of the mural, tentatively titled "Where to Exorcise the Mountain Spirits," is violence, the kind that jolts the nation when there is a campus massacre and the kind that upends neighborhoods when a teenager is stabbed on a basketball court.

"I wanted to do something that focused on campus violence, something that directly expressed violence in action," said Liu, one of China's most influential artists, speaking in Chinese through a translator. "I initially wanted the students to look out from a crowd, and I wanted to install a gun and the question 'Who used this gun?' to convey that anyone in the crowd could be the perpetrator."

That concept changed in January, after Liu viewed a video recording made in November 2007 of dozens of Boston students discussing his idea. Some of the students, including members of the MFA's Teen Arts Council, were worried that the mural would portray youths as perpetrators of violence.

"People tend to think of youth as violent, and the group was really against being looked at that way," said Erica Castro, 16, one of the teens featured in the painting.

Liu finished his newly envisioned mural late last month, during a two-week residency program at the museum. He was invited along with nine contemporary Chinese artists to take part in an exhibition, "Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition." It will open in November 2010. The artists are creating works inspired by the MFA's collection of Chinese art.

Liu selected "Exorcising Spirits from the Mountains," a 15th- century work by an unidentified artist, and used it as a vehicle for the contemplation of violence in today's society as well as an inspiration for his mural on youth and violence in America.

The other artists, currently in different locations in China and the United States, are working on their segments of the project. The new works will be displayed together, and next to the collections that inspired the artists. The exhibition was conceived in 2005 by the museum's curator of Chinese art.

After accepting the invitation, Liu indicated he wanted to use local youth as subjects. While the finished project does not include a gun, it does include statements from the nine teens about violence, written in the white, empty space on the edge of the mural after the painting was complete. "Even though I smile, you are not really able to see who I really am . . . violence . . . It's my past, present and future!" wrote Castro, who lives in Roxbury.

Terence Tran, an 18-year-old who lives in Medford and attends Medford High School, wrote that violence is "*the birth of the USA, *the father that drinks, *the slums of the city, * propaganda in class . . ." Tran said he "wanted to show that life shouldn't be taken for granted, that violence takes many forms." Almost four years ago, he said, a friend, 16-year-old Bang Mai, was stabbed to death during a brawl on a basketball court in South Boston. "I hate to see youth resort to violence. I've never had an encounter, but I have seen some friends join gangs," he said.

Liu said he hopes the paintings of the students draw viewers in close enough to read the statements. "When people first approach, they will see lovely, likeable youth," he said. "Then, when they read, they will be reminded that violence threatens everyone."

Liu works at a fast pace, but still, the sittings - he painted most of the teens during separate sessions - took up to three hours. He held a plate with several dollops of paint in his left hand and pivoted like a basketball player between the canvas and a water bucket, where he cleaned his brush with a quick dip and a flick of his wrist to throw off excess water. Between the bucket and the canvas, Liu took quick peeks at his subjects, as if attempting to recapture or hold onto their image in his memory.

One of his more challenging sittings was with George Reyes, an 18-year-old Somerville resident with long black bangs who wore calf-length plaid shorts and a dark shirt with an abstract design. Reyes fidgeted during most of the sitting, tugging at his clothing. After about an hour of posing, he lifted his left leg, balancing on his right foot to rest his other leg. He mostly gazed toward the back of the studio, focusing on a row of tall steel easels propped against a wall. Several times, he shifted the angle of his body, but always returned to his original pose.

Liu started painting Reyes as he does with all his subjects, by drawing an outline. He then dipped his brush in the paints and started coloring in the face. After about an hour, he ran the tip of his brush across the neckline, not actually touching the paper. The face was complete. Reyes glanced over to his likeness, then snapped back to his pose as Xiaodong began filling in the arms.