尤玉玲的绘画实践及其时间维度

庄严法界一一圆明园遗址 2015 布面油画 40x50cm

尤玉玲祖籍山东，现定居北京，北京美术家协会会员。退休前任职于北京市海淀区委宣传部，长期从事公共文化传播与精神文明建设相关工作。与通常由学院体系进入艺术领域的路径不同，她的绘画实践发生在人生阶段的转换之后：当社会角色逐渐退至背景，个体经验与内在感知重新成为主体。正是在这一时间节点上，绘画不再只是技艺性的学习，而转化为一种对生命经验进行再组织的方式。

You Yuling, whose ancestral roots are in Shandong Province, currently lives in Beijing. She is a member of the Beijing Artists Association. Before retirement, she worked at the Publicity Department of the Haidian District Committee in Beijing, where she was long engaged in public cultural communication and the construction of civic and spiritual culture. Unlike the conventional path through which many artists enter the field by way of the academic system, her painting practice emerged after a transition in life stage: when social roles gradually receded into the background, individual experience and inner perception once again became central. It was at this particular point in time that painting ceased to be merely a technical pursuit and instead became a way of reorganizing life experience.

废弃羊圈一一右玉二分关 2018 布面油画 50x60cm

退休后，尤玉玲进入海淀老龄大学系统学习油画三年，师从闵学刚。在这一学习过程中，技术训练固然重要，但更关键的是观看方式的重建。对于一位在成熟人生阶段进入绘画实践的创作者而言，图像并非从外部世界被动提取，而是在记忆、情感与时间沉积之中逐渐生成。绘画因此成为一种经验结构的显现机制，而非单纯的视觉再现活动。

After retirement, You Yuling studied oil painting systematically for three years at Haidian University for the Elderly under the guidance of Min Xuegang. In this process of study, technical training was certainly important, but what mattered more was the reconstruction of a way of seeing. For a creator who enters painting practice at a mature stage of life, images are not passively extracted from the external world; rather, they gradually take shape through memory, emotion, and the sedimentation of time. Painting thus becomes a mechanism through which structures of experience are made visible, rather than a mere act of visual representation.

老村韵味一一右玉二分关 2018 布面油画 50x60cm

从语言层面观察，尤玉玲的创作并不刻意追求风格化标识，也不试图进入观念艺术的复杂叙事结构。其绘画更接近一种以日常经验为基础的视觉书写：自然景象、生活片段与情绪感受在画面中被重新组织，形成相对稳定而内向的情感场域。色彩处理趋于温和与节制，形体关系保持朴素而清晰的结构秩序，使图像在不张扬的状态中维持持续的观看张力。这种克制并非能力的限制，而是一种主动的表达选择——将绘画从外在修辞中抽离，回到经验本身的真实密度。

Viewed from the perspective of artistic language, You Yuling's work does not deliberately pursue a stylized signature, nor does it attempt to enter the complex narrative structure of conceptual art. Her painting is closer to a form of visual writing grounded in everyday experience: natural scenes, fragments of life, and emotional impressions are reorganized within the picture, forming a relatively stable and inward emotional field. Her treatment of color tends toward gentleness and restraint, while the relationships of form maintain a plain yet clear structural order, allowing the image to sustain a quiet but lasting visual tension. This restraint is not a limitation of ability, but an active choice of expression—one that withdraws painting from external rhetoric and returns it to the true density of experience itself.

上庄水库一隅 2021 布面油画 50x60cm

更为重要的是，其绘画实践呈现出一种显著的时间意识。与青年艺术家常见的即时表达不同，尤玉玲的图像更接近“回望式生成”：过往生活的记忆、情感与精神体验在时间沉淀之后重新浮现，并通过绘画获得可见形态。由此，画面不再只是对现实瞬间的记录，而成为多重时间层叠的结果。时间在这里并非线性流逝，而是一种可被观看的结构存在。

More importantly, her painting practice reveals a distinct consciousness of time. Unlike the immediacy of expression often seen in younger artists, You Yuling's images are closer to a form of “retrospective generation”: memories, emotions, and spiritual experiences from past life resurface after the sedimentation of time and acquire visible form through painting. In this sense, the picture is no longer merely a record of a moment in reality, but the result of multiple layers of time. Here, time is not a linear flow, but a visible structural presence.

香山植物园写生的画家们 2018 布面油画 40x30cm

置于更广阔的当代艺术语境中观察，尤玉玲的创作提示出另一种值得关注的路径：当代性并不必然依赖媒介革新或观念突破，也可以在经验深度与时间维度之中获得展开。她的绘画没有直接回应宏大的社会议题，却通过对个体生命经验的持续凝视，构建出一种安静而持久的精神空间。在这一意义上，其作品所呈现的并非个人化的抒情，而是一种关于普通生命如何进入艺术表达的结构性命题。

Placed within the broader context of contemporary art, You Yuling's work points to another path worthy of attention: contemporaneity does not necessarily depend on media innovation or conceptual breakthrough; it may also unfold through the depth of experience and the dimension of time. Her paintings do not directly respond to grand social issues, yet through a sustained gaze upon individual life experience, they construct a quiet and enduring spiritual space. In this sense, what her works present is not merely personal lyricism, but a structural proposition concerning how ordinary life enters artistic expression.

北大未名湖前留影的博士们 2018 布面油画 40x30cm

同时，这种在成熟年龄阶段展开的绘画实践，也对既有艺术史叙事形成微妙补充。传统叙事往往强调天赋、学院训练与职业化路径，而尤玉玲的经验显示：艺术生成同样可以发生于时间之后。当社会经验积累到一定厚度，绘画反而获得更为稳定的精神基础。图像因此不再是对外部世界的探索，而成为对生命自身的缓慢确认。

At the same time, this painting practice, unfolded at a mature age, also offers a subtle supplement to existing narratives of art history. Traditional narratives often emphasize talent, academic training, and professionalized artistic paths. Yet You Yuling's experience shows that artistic generation can also occur after time has accumulated. When social experience has reached a certain depth, painting may in fact acquire a more stable spiritual foundation. The image, therefore, is no longer an exploration of the external world, but a slow confirmation of life itself.

超市印象 2022 布面油画 40x30cm

从方法论层面看，她的创作并不以突破既有语言为目标，而是在有限的视觉结构中持续深化感知密度。这种“向内的扩展”使绘画摆脱风格竞争的外部逻辑，转而进入经验与时间交织的深层维度。图像的意义并不依赖形式的新奇，而来自情感与记忆在画面中的真实停驻。

From a methodological perspective, her work does not aim to break through existing artistic languages. Rather, within a limited visual structure, it continues to deepen the density of perception. This “inward expansion” allows painting to move beyond the external logic of stylistic competition and enter a deeper dimension where experience and time are intertwined. The meaning of the image does not rely on formal novelty, but emerges from the authentic dwelling of emotion and memory within the picture.

清华美术馆里认真观展的学生 2018 布面油画 40x30cm

因此，尤玉玲的绘画实践所揭示的，并不仅是个体在晚年进入艺术创作的个人故事，而是一种关于时间、经验与图像生成关系的当代表述。她的创作提醒我们：艺术并非只属于速度、突破与前卫，也可以属于沉淀、回望与缓慢生成。在这种安静而持续的绘画之中，时间不再只是流逝的背景，而成为图像最深处的结构力量。

文/邵琦

2026年2月7日·北京通州

Therefore, what You Yuling's painting practice reveals is not merely the personal story of an individual entering artistic creation in later life, but a contemporary expression of the relationship among time, experience, and image generation. Her work reminds us that art does not belong only to speed, breakthrough, and the avant-garde; it may also belong to sedimentation, retrospection, and slow formation. In such quiet and sustained painting, time is no longer merely the background of passing life, but the structural force at the deepest level of the image.

Text / Shao Qi

February 7, 2026 · Tongzhou, Beijing

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尤玉玲

1957 出生于山东，现居北京。北京美术家协会会员，写生中国水彩协会北京分会秘书长。曾任海淀区老龄大学枫林油画协会会长、海淀区美术家协会理事、海淀区美术家协会党支部书记。

You Yuling

1957 Born in Shandong Province, currently lives and works in Beijing. a member of the Beijing Artists Association and serves as Secretary-General of the Beijing Branch of the Sketch China Watercolor Association. She formerly served as President of the Fenglin Oil Painting Association at Haidian University for the Elderly, Council Member of the Haidian District Artists Association, and Secretary of the Party Branch of the Haidian District Artists Association.