Among all the works, Zhou Hongbin’s ‘Aquarium’ series chains up the most water. There is no doubt that it doesn’t take much time from ‘immersion’ to 'indulgence’ – only a matter of a second for the transformation of forms and emotions.

Tian Ye’s ‘Wandering Slowly’ series first draws our eyes to the waterside of a gloomy atmosphere, then calmly pulls out the wild foreground (a clump of aquatic grass) and strips off the seemingly hard shell (the buildings in progress), and then spotlights the bur-like dot. It is human shadow or body spread like ripples above the water. The glance also spreads from that single ‘spot’. Our attention becomes lax again, opposite to before, wandering from the center to the surroundings.

Wang Yuming’s ‘Yuan Park’ uses a special color to further deprive the dying aquatic plants off their lives. Due to the blur effect, the distance between the audience and the scenery in the picture is widened so that the danger of getting deeply sunk is controlled.

'Sea Line’ series also tries to change the texture of the images. It doesn’t directly present any liquid but bottles in an ambiguous way. Liu Yue collects and overlays these bottles, making them bulge from the soft white background like air bubbles out of water. After the juxtaposition, the surreal experiences are manifested: the characters, outlines and functions of objects are dissolved. What’s more interesting is that the solvent (photo) is clean and transparent, making a lightsome detour between solid and liquid state like a vanishing dream.

The two works of Gu Zheng’s ‘Untitled’ series are dry, which can be reflected in two ways. First, the noisy points are plenty and obvious; Secondly, the container which shall hold liquid has no wet feeling. Everything recorded is lying in the photo. The involvement of imagination has nothing to do with the photo itself. Gu Zheng’s works dissolve the ‘documentary’ function of photograph under the dry features.

Steles’ is the subject that Christopher Taylor from Scotland worked on in a certain period. The views are mostly taken in China’s Yellow River basin. No matter in Scottish or Chinese cultural background, ‘steles’ is solid, a media used to record the past. Christopher changes the texture of stele but respects the two meanings. In one picture, he turns the running water into a stele.

Qiu Minye’s ‘WHO ARE WHO’ is the driest pictures in this exhibition. They seem to go through excessive airing and sunning that water has been thoroughly evaporated. ‘There are always two worlds; otherwise the world has already collapsed. The amount of mountains in front decides the much of water you need at heart. Those who can shuttle freely between the two worlds are enviable lives.’ The artist explains his works.

I decide to use ‘wetting’ – such an unusual word as the title of this exhibition. It can refer to two different conditions: ‘immersing in water’ or ‘start to get wet by water’. I feel such contradiction interesting and try to fit such contradiction and interest in the exhibition – facing the pictures, our visions seem to open widely or just build up our own visual islet.
- Yan Mulai (Translated by Fan Chen) 

Courtesy of Ofoto Gallery