A
Man
In
The
Mist

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.


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

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?

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