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I am indulged by the smile of the women in my paintings: that utterly helpless, complicated, but loving and consoling look. There is something vague in it, hard to explain in words, but I feel that it is very important for me to express this in my paintings. I have a strong desire to enjoy the pleasures of life, all the while wanting to experience the correlating fear and anxiety. It is a desire so strong that I cannot escape it. It is the most fundamental and charming part of human life, inherent in human existence for thousands of years with little change. |
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The Tree Of Desire – Wei Dong
I am indulged by the smile of the women in my paintings: that utterly helpless, complicated, but loving and consoling look.
There is something vague in it, hard to explain in words, but I feel that it is very important for me to express this in my paintings. I have a strong desire to enjoy the pleasures of life, all the while wanting to experience the correlating fear and anxiety. It is a desire so strong that I cannot escape it. It is the most fundamental and charming part of human life, inherent in human existence for thousands of years with little change.
Placing female figures, from different time periods, in artificial space is a way for me to reflect the complexity of life, the desire, fear and anxiety behind the alluring female bodies. Through this exploration of fear and anxiety, I try to understand the human condition and myself.
The works from Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ later years have had a profound influence on me: not necessarily the figurative format, but rather his loving indulgence in the representation of female bodies. This indulgence is somewhat pushed to the extreme; but, in his paintings, what you see is quiet and eternal. I also appreciate the restraint in his work. In the works of surrealists, the restraint is gone, leaving you in complete fear and anxiety.
Idealism of this sort is seemingly lost entirely to the contemporary world. I try to focus my reflection on life on a more primitive form—desire itself—the strength of which is well expressed through female bodies. Through my depictions of the flesh and muscles, the bones and sinews of the human form, I have been seeking the shapes of my own desire. It is not an attempt to recreate the female world. Desire itself is the force behind my paintings. For instance, a tree that I deeply immersed in a painting would be a tree of desire. In the end, desire of indulging and of freeing yourself is truly what makes life worth living.
