It is quite by chance that “The Red Yingru” was designated the title of the exhibition. The six participating artists got together as friends, their works in themselves having little in common. An odd idea popped up and it was decided that the title of the exhibition be chosen through a friendly interactive game. On an afternoon before the exhibition, the artists met at the home of Wang Tianxuan, one of the six, for a chat. While there, they found three books: Ancient Chinese Dictionary, Illustrated Classical Shan Hai Jing (a Chinese bestiary) and vájra-cchedikā-prajñā-pāramitā-sūtra. Each of them was asked to pick at random a few Chinese characters and phrases, and after mixing these together, lots were drawn at great length and two choices made: “袾”(zhu) and “犭婴如”. The first word means scarlet as well as nice, while Yingru is a mystical beast described in the book Shan Hai Jing, which has the following features: shaped like a deer, white-tailed, hind legs hoofed but fore legs affixed with hands, bearing four horns. Auspicious and righteous, the beast is endowed with supernatural strength, and looks powerful and agile. Perhaps inspiration often comes to art just like that, haphazardly and without design. The red Yingru offers an independent, self-confident, free and open vision which is just the exhibition aspires to achieve. All were quite gratified with the game derived result.

Art itself is the accumulation of experience inspired by emotional turning points in the course of life, and is determined by the artist’s personality, life experience, living condition and way of life. The different life experience and feelings give rise to their respective artistic style. The aim of the exhibition is to present a diverse and expansive artistic landscape.

Wang Tianxuan is an artist who feels strongly about life; for him, art is the carrier of his interpretation of life. He transforms his understanding of the objective material world into his personal landscape of ethos, a mysterious, absurd and obscure world which reflects inescapable genuineness. Zhu Xinyu is an artist who is extremely sensitive to art. His works can always usher people into a deep space of the soul: a place of reminiscence, faint colors, cold and shady environment, dim light, everything solitary and miraculous as if the dreams of the audience can be easily taken away. Wan Zhenyu’s works are filled with interpretations of life and future fantasies. Skillfully, he lets all kinds of people and events meet, creating an unknown sensational world. Like a Rubik's Cube, his works put people into different kinds of scenarios and suppositions. Liu Gang’s work contrasts the good of the past with the cruelty of the present, realistically depicting the powerlessness of reality. Using poetic affection, Zhang Yingnan freezes the good of the past and stores it in memory. In the face of reality, the artist continuously resorts to memory to isolate anything unpleasant, and to seek spiritual solace. That actually is like the candy we were given in our childhood when we were hurt. The heroic Monkey King of his childhood days has progressed in life and aged considerably, and artist Huang Kuan has jocularly evolved “The Old Monkey King” into a metaphor of the reality. Solitude, indecision and the lack of security is the label of modern life. When worship and faith have also started to change quietly, can we still master with accuracy our moral standard and inner faith? After experiencing loss, bewilderment, improvement and radicalization, contemporary Chinese artists are now as calm and clear as an undisturbed lake. The only way forward is to create an independent artistic path and mindset, to find a way “home”, so to speak. We hope that through this exhibition an open and free visual experience will be presented. We also hope that “The Red Yingru” will guide us to what brilliance and thrill art has to offer.

[1]A mystical animal depicted in an old Chinese bestiary.