Curator:
ZHAO Yonggang

An exhibition of artist HUANG He latest installations and paintings 

"Face" is a preferred object in HUANG He’s works over the years and such preference is still shown in his current works. By adding religious subjects in his work, with the contrary of three kinds of faces, the consistent heaviness is taken on and people are led to the pondering over of human beings’ ultimate question.

HUANG He introduces “skull” as one of the objects on display this time. The chaotic splintery strikes following HUANG He’s tradition of roughness, the figure of skull is as if glued onto the thick grey background and looming through our broken and distorted vision. The distance as thick as a mirror intentionally created by the artist sets up a gaze between the observer and the observed which confused the audience: if they’re the observer or the observed. The wild spots and misshapen streaks cause the contortion and deformation of the depicted object and its line of sight, which is a tradition of HUANG He’s works. And we can see such tradition in his two new oil paintings with the figure of skull.

To reach the aim of discussing the main theme, two basic methods are, narrating and express emotion by using the figures. HUANG He’s works are always walking on the edge of “figure” and “figuration” with his objects mostly filled with visionary bursts. The slight change of taking shape and submerging is often hard to notice in a still picture, but could be measured by layers or thickness. The scraped images full of visual impact make HUANG He’s work “wild” and at the same time a powerful vessel of emotions. By using certain figure to tell story, indirectly reaching the main theme by depicting time passing or turning points of life, HUANG He can be very melancholy in forming his characters. The attitude towards color originate from traditional Chinese ink and wash painting is used here in his oil paintings; the fragile human life is expressed by gradual change of grey and black added by proper amount of scratches. There’re also two sets of oil paintings of children’s faces: one is their last picture before death; the other is their state after death. His brushstrokes are filled with such melancholy by contrary of these two statuses.

His other two sculpture works involves religious elements, showing the crucifixion of Jesus. The difference is Jesus’ body is replaced by a golden skull wearing brambles at the crossing of the cross. Herein, HUANG He emphasizes on soul that actually rose human’s death up to heaven, the decay of body is as objective as human mind’s fabricate wish. The skull is gold, gorgeous and hard but also fragile, just like people’s idea of life and death and longing for redemption.

Life and death, flesh and soul, ascription and redeem, such sets of ideas are generated from the expression from HUANG He’s work, inheriting his continuous inquiry of human identity.