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A
Man

In
The

Mist

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2012

Modern Area

160 x 110 cm
Oil on Canvas
2012

Fervent Prayer

160 x 110 cm
Oil on Canvas
2012

Being born in Beijing in the 90s and growing up to witness the change of Chinese society, the materialization was overwhelming. The glamor was exiting. Yet, intoxicating. Wealth, material, position... I've seen people so energized, chasing them so determinedly. I couldn't help but started wondering, if there is any purpose within all these. Am I going to let my life driven by nothing but greed? Am I going to settle for the shallowness that nubs me and pretend there is an escape from pain? Am I going to abandon my reality for it? ......

 

Toward the year 2012, Beijing had defiantly become the metropolis that was filling people's vanity unstopingly. Though, as the days went by, I felt more and more lonely. I felt lonely when I was sitting at a loud dinner table surrounded by people drinking and laughing; I felt lonely when I was walking through the city center, through thousands of people passing me by, through the forrest of skyscrapers; I felt lonely when I attempted to share my thoughts and feelings, yet all what the others would care were appearances and profits. 

 

I found myself separating from the atmosphere around me. When I was sitting at the table, or walking on the street, I was not really there. I was far from there. Far from all of them. Noises around me couldn't reach to my inner quietness. I stepped out, from the kind of life I grew up to know. 

 

And that was the state of mind I had while painting the series The Man in the Mist. In one of the painting, Alley, you can actually see I separated the character, one figure turned into two, body and soul. I think this series recorded a big step of my inner search. I was 19 when I started it.

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At that moment, it blurred the sound of the world

And took away the heat of my body

The chilliness wakened my senses

Like a naked exposure in front of the world

The harsh sound of the air scratched on my skin

The pain kept my mind so clear

People passed me by

The world dazzled so much

A pity it only filled with contradictory notions

I abandoned the regulations of this modern area

Persistently and cowardly

My existence only bumps in the transmigration of the universe

Washed by the tide of time and space

And taken to the harbors that I must arrive

=

Alley

150 x 110 cm
Oil on Canvas
2012

Distant Flourish

160 x 110 cm
Oil on Canvas
2012

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Who were enslaved by the artificial rules

Who vegetated under the force of nature

Who acclaimed the pretension of triumph

Who headed into the penalty of redemption

Who stagnated in the turbulent world

While who marched in the static space?

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At last my only wisdom and strength were gone

And faded away in this bustling place

People hurriedly pass me by

No longer perceive my existence

So then even my last awareness was departed from my body

The mist rose and covered the city before my eyes

-- 2012

Behind The Scene

© 2023 by Ali B. Lu

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