WANG XIN

In August 2020, my father passed away. I stared into his serene face in silence. No fear, only softness, his face was dappled with sunlight streaming through the door and the refraction of light from the glass window, fragmented and merged with the faint lines and marks on his face. I saw an experience like seeing the rocks in Guilin, the kind of free flow between the organic and the inorganic. The skull will break down and decompose. Calcium and phosphorus will be absorbed by plants. New orders and compounds will be created from chaos and disarray. This is where I began to associate the skull and flesh with the metamorphoses between organic and inorganic matter. It is a “jungle” where humanity, post-humanity, and transcendental feelings converge. I'm fascinated by anthroposophy [founded by Rudolf Steiner]. In his theory, human bodies, plants, and stars are all physical manifestations of a complex and exalted world of spiritual beings, in other words, you can glimpse into the essence of the universe from every natural being. Changes and circulations are such generous and unbridled forces in nature that the distinction between life and death seems trivial but takes all its sense in fine art.