To render the immemorial animality of civilized humans, I merged organs and limbs as a stomach-shaped standing monstrosity. The visual pun of a human face or a trapped bird’s metabolic part, standing legs or a tongue, upwardly open legs from instinct or trunks, and the combination of a tame bird with aggressive ivories all symbolize duality of our emancipation of and enjoyment from primal impulses on an exquisite and rigid modern background (referring to Piet Mondrian).

困鸟与八卦，胃舌与人面，消化与享受，粗野与精致。

人与兽，缺与整；腿与象鼻，柔软与尖锐，放与收。

雅与俗，驯与服，承自古老，固于摩登。

饮食男女，食色性也。

To manifest humans’ perplexity and balance of things’ duality, I drew abstractly a horse-like beast and figuratively an upturned human head, indicating our primitiveness and rationality. The human’s lips, cerebral sulcus, teeth with lips and eye respectively correspond to the beast’s back, large bowels, underpart and anus. Adding the recurring toilet pattern, the work reveals our “decency” as a refined, civilized fabric over the earthly triviality which is embarrassing but ubiquitous in reality.

马桶与马，秽物与伏兽，揭露与回顾。

人与兽，脸与身，唇与脊，肠与脑沟。

地球与脑，普遍而彻底。

“借日神的理性，我们看清了生活的丑陋真相，再借酒神的狂欢，给生活蒙一层艺术的面纱。” —尼采

To manifest our inclination for self-similar sigother and perpetual animality, I portrayed forests bathed in sunshine and reflected in lake, below which a yellow-striped fish in two halves is instinctively drawn to two heart-shaped hooks. Resembling an anchor of steadiness, the male reproductive organ in the middle, with a bow in tension of an upturned mouth shape, renders balance of impulses in composition and meaning. Generally, the face of a baboon, worshiped as “divine monkey”, is depicted.

满弓与唇，鱼钩与心。

锚与箭，安定与飞扬。

男女与阴阳，平衡与释放。

绿林与初阳，水上与水下。

I intend to elaborate on humans’ domesticated nature, self-imprisonment and indulgence in nicotine for narcosis. On the background of half-moon in darkness casts silhouette of a woman in red gown, smoking a pipe with tears streaming down over eyes and mouth wide open in a silent and void scream. Her nose and mouth also resemble part of a frail black cat, which, with a human-dog monstrosity huddled up and supping on it as two domesticated animals, symbolizes humans’ submissive and coward side.

泪与红面纱，女人的剪影与月亮。

呐喊与黑猫，孩童与幼犬蜷躺。

黑夜与烟斗，美丽与苍凉。

闷里有心，有月，无门。

The work renders a human popping from a squat toilet with arms doing bench press; meanwhile, the figure puns as a docile deer, wearing suit with its head hung in a dark room as ornament typically symbolizing victory. Similar to its portrayed instinct for drinking from a hand basin, humans’ submission to seek instant pleasure with upwardly open legs and our forced, relentless struggle from filth form a dramatic tension with the V posture articulated like “we” and symbolizing civilized victory.

暗室与麋鹿挂饰，武力与尊严。

饮水的鹿与西装，本能与习惯。

鹿角与腿，天经地义的解放。

蹲厕与卧推，乐此不疲地施力挣脱。 “一个腰部以下的叛逆”，一场刚柔并济的胜利，温顺而张扬，原始而驯良。

文明，出淤泥而染。

Revolving around the core theme of our animality and humanity in civilized society, I intend to visualize our perpetual duality in nature through pairing of metaphorical symbols with binary qualities, and what I am trying to express is not condescending criticism or declared resolution but a philosophical excursion into human nature and a manifestation of our dilemma, perplexity or balance.

Please rotate the painting by 180° or 90° for your viewing.

人之常情，兽之本性。

衣冠禽兽，人面兽心。

非黑非白，万物本灰。

旋转之间，开天辟地。

请自行旋转180或90度观赏作品。