Rear Wave New Faces of New Painting（Line Gallery·Beijing） 2023.12.30 - 2024.02.20 PREFACE WORKS SCENE TEXT	□ Hou Wen，as Bright as the Starlight Cao Siyu At the moment, I am listening to original sound tracks of Interstella, the notes drift through my ears, I see the starlight in the night sky. The color of the starry night was just like Hou Wen 's eyes, in which something is shining charmingly. To me, this pureness is just the shimmering quality that makes her life out of ordinary. The Reflection of the soul "I have to be punished, must be renewed every day; I want to struggle recklessly, to resist，to survive. Missing of any will lead to lack of beauty. A casual behavior in my childhood has become the metaphor of my life, outlining the attitude I am pursuing. Noble and savage, pain and sublimation, conspiracy and fearlessness, suppression and freedom, these contradictions that I want to spent my life to experience, were already included in the chaos in my early life. " Hou Wen put this passage that the writer Can Xue wrote in one of her self-narrations, show us the loneliness in the soul at the very start, and the strength of beauty only to be created in loneliness. Hou Wen is so sensitive to beauty, in the process of approaching to eternity, she chose sculpture, making the little girl who speaks for her manifest the image. Hou Wen at first studied animation，because of her childhood accompanied by cartoon and the longing for art existing in her memory. But soon enough, she found the production and mechanics was a team work, and the emotion，thought and spirit of an individual cannot be presented fully and independently. Turning to sculpture, she hence chose a way which transforms spirit into figures. She said, there was a fascinating contradiction between the invisibility of spirit and the entity of sculptures, this contradiction makes the entity more illusory, and the spirit more real. The little girl’s figure came out naturally and instinctively – a figure which has the features of Hou Wen, but also independent in her own world. She is pretty, lovely and complicated; she is also lonely, immature though full of strength. She is the mirror between Hou Wen and the real life, the hand touching the world, and the ear listening to the life. The little girl opened up a world, where Hou Wen met herself. Beneath her gentle face In Hou Wen’s description, the appearance of the little girl bore the harm unable to distern in life. She was wrapped by sunlight lying on the ground, her eyes were empty， slack yet profound. The moment she looked into the little girl, Hou Wen didn’t find herself, instead she saw a black blade. This is an insightful fantasy, with time, scene and a real encounter. There is fraught with danger, as well as the warmth of the sun, this is the moment Hou Wen meet herself, also the beginning that “she” look into the world with her eyes. The story started from a leopard cub. This work is a little girl holding a young leopard, two immature lives were put together, the little leopard is small but has its sharp claws, taking precautions against the world. The leopard is the reverence for life under the gentle appearance of the small girl, also the courage facing the world. Same as her peers, loneliness since her childhood is derived from the missing of real spiritual communication with parents, the gaps and differences between the two worlds left more unspeakable secrets in her growing up. The abundance of material became the most important pursuit to life as well as their children. In the spoil of their love, there were control and restraint hidden behind, and the soul that can 't be placed. In the depths of Hou Wen’s memory, a little princess who held a doll sadly stood there all alone, facing the confusion and predicament about love. For Hou Wen, it’s a very comfortable thing to enter the status of make sculptures, in which she feels everything else disappears, only remains the works in front of her, and the action of carving and modelling. I think this is the supreme charisma of art, when you find it, you will feel free. When you feel the free, then you own the whole world. Hou Wen said，from the beginning until now, her work is never only the externalization of spirit, it also start a dialogue with itself as independent individual again and again, in this process, the little girl grows up. The shift of dream When imagination walks into the deeper dream world, the true-and-false in it comes closer to real life, everything is a dream, and everything is also real. The narrative in sculptures, is completed by "building environment ", which is however different from its concept in painting. It either only about modeling of main character or object, which is everything that extends from one moment, or it tells a richer background about the story through its characters or props. In Hou Wen’s recent works, the little girl is no longer so realistic, no longer carrying fresh memory and trauma. It began to move, both in the dream of reality and the reality in dream. The joining of metal material, make the temperature difference between real body and stainless steel can be realized, soft and hard, warm and cold, this is just the enrichment and expanding of Hou Wen’s sculpture language. In her latest works, she removed the obvious emotions and apparent storyline. Hou Wen said, now when she looked into art in ancient times, those highly abstract images is rich in cartoon sense, therefore the understanding about cartoon will reach a new height, the charisma of cartoon image is just in its simplicity and abstraction, here abstraction is the concept as in paintings, but the abstraction to express the complexity in characters with simple modeling. So she began to remove the trivial details, such as the color of sculptures, reduced to simplex; as in the way of narrative, the double identity in her former works was removed, she focuses the breaking points on the modeling of forms with the power of the works, and the texture of the material itself. In Dreaming of Butterflies, the girl 's hair extends upward, pointing to the direction of dreamland, turning into a cluster of dancing butterfly. Am I turning into butterflies? Or butterflies become me? In Zhuangzi’s dream of butterfly, there was no longer distinction between human and insect, and this is a rare way that we can prove our existence in the world, so no matter the butterfly or a dust, is the constant metamorphosing presence of oneself. It 's an angel, also Themis In these works, I saw the complexity of Piscis in Hou Wen, and the persistence to order in this complexity. She’s like an angel, telling a story about goodness; she’s also like Themis, telling people the shape of order with both sides of things. She preaches goodness and justice, made no secret of her great power, isn 't life blooming in this way? Behind the work Purification, there is a very infuriating and heart-breaking story. Hou Wen looked at me and said, what’s wrong with this world? How heavy is the evil in human nature? She said in the news the girl was lying in bed wrapped with bandages , which made her looked far away from pain, this injury that she cannot empathizing completed human nature, meantime the girl reached a real peace and holyness. The injured girl sat in the throne, triangular geometric chair produces ascending breath. In this sharp and stingy feeling, there remains the charity and love for life. Yes, she is bright like the night star, also has the romance of firework. Delighted, because she embraces herself constantly in this world; gratified, that she lights up one and another lonely nights with this star light.

Rear Wave
New Faces of New Painting（Line Gallery·Beijing）
2023.12.30 - 2024.02.20

□ Hou Wen，as Bright as the Starlight

Cao Siyu

At the moment, I am listening to original sound tracks of Interstella, the notes drift through my ears, I see the starlight in the night sky. The color of the starry night was just like Hou Wen 's eyes, in which something is shining charmingly. To me, this pureness is just the shimmering quality that makes her life out of ordinary.

The Reflection of the soul

"I have to be punished, must be renewed every day; I want to struggle recklessly, to resist，to survive. Missing of any will lead to lack of beauty. A casual behavior in my childhood has become the metaphor of my life, outlining the attitude I am pursuing. Noble and savage, pain and sublimation, conspiracy and fearlessness, suppression and freedom, these contradictions that I want to spent my life to experience, were already included in the chaos in my early life. "

Hou Wen put this passage that the writer Can Xue wrote in one of her self-narrations, show us the loneliness in the soul at the very start, and the strength of beauty only to be created in loneliness. Hou Wen is so sensitive to beauty, in the process of approaching to eternity, she chose sculpture, making the little girl who speaks for her manifest the image.

Hou Wen at first studied animation，because of her childhood accompanied by cartoon and the longing for art existing in her memory. But soon enough, she found the production and mechanics was a team work, and the emotion，thought and spirit of an individual cannot be presented fully and independently. Turning to sculpture, she hence chose a way which transforms spirit into figures. She said, there was a fascinating contradiction between the invisibility of spirit and the entity of sculptures, this contradiction makes the entity more illusory, and the spirit more real.

The little girl’s figure came out naturally and instinctively – a figure which has the features of Hou Wen, but also independent in her own world. She is pretty, lovely and complicated; she is also lonely, immature though full of strength. She is the mirror between Hou Wen and the real life, the hand touching the world, and the ear listening to the life. The little girl opened up a world, where Hou Wen met herself.

Beneath her gentle face

In Hou Wen’s description, the appearance of the little girl bore the harm unable to distern in life. She was wrapped by sunlight lying on the ground, her eyes were empty， slack yet profound. The moment she looked into the little girl, Hou Wen didn’t find herself, instead she saw a black blade.

This is an insightful fantasy, with time, scene and a real encounter. There is fraught with danger, as well as the warmth of the sun, this is the moment Hou Wen meet herself, also the beginning that “she” look into the world with her eyes.

The story started from a leopard cub. This work is a little girl holding a young leopard, two immature lives were put together, the little leopard is small but has its sharp claws, taking precautions against the world. The leopard is the reverence for life under the gentle appearance of the small girl, also the courage facing the world.

Same as her peers, loneliness since her childhood is derived from the missing of real spiritual communication with parents, the gaps and differences between the two worlds left more unspeakable secrets in her growing up. The abundance of material became the most important pursuit to life as well as their children. In the spoil of their love, there were control and restraint hidden behind, and the soul that can 't be placed. In the depths of Hou Wen’s memory, a little princess who held a doll sadly stood there all alone, facing the confusion and predicament about love.

For Hou Wen, it’s a very comfortable thing to enter the status of make sculptures, in which she feels everything else disappears, only remains the works in front of her, and the action of carving and modelling. I think this is the supreme charisma of art, when you find it, you will feel free. When you feel the free, then you own the whole world. Hou Wen said，from the beginning until now, her work is never only the externalization of spirit, it also start a dialogue with itself as independent individual again and again, in this process, the little girl grows up.

The shift of dream

When imagination walks into the deeper dream world, the true-and-false in it comes closer to real life, everything is a dream, and everything is also real.

The narrative in sculptures, is completed by "building environment ", which is however different from its concept in painting. It either only about modeling of main character or object, which is everything that extends from one moment, or it tells a richer background about the story through its characters or props.

In Hou Wen’s recent works, the little girl is no longer so realistic, no longer carrying fresh memory and trauma. It began to move, both in the dream of reality and the reality in dream. The joining of metal material, make the temperature difference between real body and stainless steel can be realized, soft and hard, warm and cold, this is just the enrichment and expanding of Hou Wen’s sculpture language.

In her latest works, she removed the obvious emotions and apparent storyline. Hou Wen said, now when she looked into art in ancient times, those highly abstract images is rich in cartoon sense, therefore the understanding about cartoon will reach a new height, the charisma of cartoon image is just in its simplicity and abstraction, here abstraction is the concept as in paintings, but the abstraction to express the complexity in characters with simple modeling. So she began to remove the trivial details, such as the color of sculptures, reduced to simplex; as in the way of narrative, the double identity in her former works was removed, she focuses the breaking points on the modeling of forms with the power of the works, and the texture of the material itself.

In Dreaming of Butterflies, the girl 's hair extends upward, pointing to the direction of dreamland, turning into a cluster of dancing butterfly. Am I turning into butterflies? Or butterflies become me? In Zhuangzi’s dream of butterfly, there was no longer distinction between human and insect, and this is a rare way that we can prove our existence in the world, so no matter the butterfly or a dust, is the constant metamorphosing presence of oneself.

It 's an angel, also Themis

In these works, I saw the complexity of Piscis in Hou Wen, and the persistence to order in this complexity. She’s like an angel, telling a story about goodness; she’s also like Themis, telling people the shape of order with both sides of things. She preaches goodness and justice, made no secret of her great power, isn 't life blooming in this way?

Behind the work Purification, there is a very infuriating and heart-breaking story. Hou Wen looked at me and said, what’s wrong with this world? How heavy is the evil in human nature? She said in the news the girl was lying in bed wrapped with bandages , which made her looked far away from pain, this injury that she cannot empathizing completed human nature, meantime the girl reached a real peace and holyness. The injured girl sat in the throne, triangular geometric chair produces ascending breath. In this sharp and stingy feeling, there remains the charity and love for life.

Yes, she is bright like the night star, also has the romance of firework. Delighted, because she embraces herself constantly in this world; gratified, that she lights up one and another lonely nights with this star light.