On Reality and Transcendence
3812: You have mentioned that the elements in your paintings appear, at first glance, to resemble reality, yet subtly transcend its boundaries. What lies beyond this “semblance of reality” that you seek to suggest? Is it an emotional truth, a metaphysical inquiry, or something more personal and intangible?
Shang: The “reality” in my paintings is never a mere replication of appearances; rather, it conceals truth within what seems like the ordinary and plausible. Those moments that subtly cross boundaries are not deliberate game with surrealism, but direct encounters between genuine emotion and the existence of reality. They represent the candour of feeling, as well as a metaphysical inquiry—a direct response to the emotions that lie beneath the surface of appearances.
I choose a figurative visual language precisely because people are inclined to give faith in the visible “reality”. But how reliable is this so-called reality? Those unspeakable and inexplicable personal experiences are the “reality” that I truly seek to reach. I don’t intend my paintings to provide answers; rather, they leave these suspended puzzles within the image.
On Scale and Bewilderment
3812: A recurring feature in your work is the larger-than-life depiction of subjects. Is this intentional exaggeration a visual strategy to express your enduring bewilderment toward life? What aspects of existence remain most incomprehensible or elusive to you, despite experience and time?
Shang: In my work, when depicting individual figures and objects, I try to keep them truthful to reality, adhering to the logic of light, shade and proportion as nature dictates. Nevertheless, I would on purpose curate them within surreal presentations and compositions – oversized, or imbalanced, or discordant and incoherent with their surroundings. This conscious exaggeration has long been a visual strategy I consistently employ. What I seek to amplify is the emotion that emerges from these meticulously orchestrated scenes.
I have always harboured a deep sense of bewilderment toward life: the meaning of existence, the gravitas of time, and the tension between desire and powerlessness. These conundrums do not fade with the enriched experience. Instead, they become even more pronounced.
I harness the curated “unbalanced”, “diminished,” “gargantuan,” “protrusive,” or “dislocated” imageries to visualise the suspension, anxiety, and uncertainty that have been haunting my inner self. Even as time passes, there remain countless matters in life beyond comprehension. It is precisely this sense of the unknowable that fuels my urge to explore and to express, and endures as my artistic drive.
On the Subconscious and Dream States
3812: Your work often delves into the subconscious, suggesting emotions concealed beneath the visible surface — as seen in Deep Void and Journey in the Cloud. Surrealist painters such as Salvador Dalí drew heavily on Sigmund Freud’s idea that dreams and imagination are central to human thought. Do you resonate with this perspective? To what extent does psychoanalytic thinking inform your creative process?
Shang: My work has been deeply steeped in the subconscious and dreamlike states. The imagery in works such as Deep Void and Journey in the Cloud mostly comes from my dreams, intuition, and those inner fragments that cannot be fully categorised and deciphered by rationality. I also share the view of Surrealists like Salvador Dalí—that dreams and imagination are not the periphery of human thinking, but rather its very core.
Sigmund Freud’s theories on the subconscious and dreams have offered me a path for self-understanding, but I have not deliberately utilised psychoanalysis to deconstruct or interpret my images. Instead, I prefer to directly capture, preserve, and amplify that dreamlike emotional texture, without explaining, without patronising, and without spelling out answers – simply leaving that half-awake, half-dreaming, both real and illusory state within the canvas.
Psychoanalytic ways of thinking have influenced not my techniques or visual language, but my approach to creation—allowing rationality to step aside and make space for intuition and the subconscious. I place my faith in those invisible and inexpressible facets, trusting that they possess a reality of their own. My paintings are not reproductions of dreams, but transformations of them into inner landscapes that can be contemplated and empathised with—a mirroring realm in which viewers may glimpse their own subconscious.
On “Wild Dream Fantasy” and the Psychedelic Landscape
3812: The “Wild Dream Fantasy” series evokes lush, almost otherworldly environments reminiscent of places rich in wildlife, such as Costa Rica or South Africa. The verdant palette and subtle trompe-l'œil effects create a dreamlike, even psychedelic atmosphere. Are these landscapes meant to represent escapism, inner territory, or a confrontation with illusion and disillusion?
Shang: In the “Wild Dream Fantasy” series, those lush, dense landscapes – exotic and mysterious – are not true-to-life depictions of real nature and geography, nor are they simple pursuit of psychedelic visual shock. Rather, they are inner territories I construct for the mind and spirit—spaces that can be accessed, immersed in, and engaged with. The rich, weighty tones, the intricately layered vegetal textures, and optical illusions characteristic of alternately visible and vanished, work together to form a realm suspended between reality and illusion. This mystical space is imbued with the primal vitality of nature, yet suffused with a dreamlike sense of trance and detachment.
These landscapes are not a passive escape, but an active turning inward. In reality, emotions entangled in order, utility, and anxiety often find no place to settle, and many feelings remain unspeakable. So within the canvas, I create a territory unbound by the rules of reality—lush and accommodating enough, to serve as vessel for my fantasies, unease, obsessions, and tenderness. It is a space I enter after detaching from the real world, where I can re-engage in dialogue with myself, with nature, and with the subconscious.
At the same time, this series reflects my ongoing contemplation of the relationship between illusion and disillusionment. The ideal visions constructed in my creation inevitably confront the collapse of expectation, the contradiction between the solace brought by the alluring illusion and the dreadful hollowness following the shattered hopes. The landscapes in “Wild Dream Fantasy” series stand precisely at the middle ground between illusion and disillusionment: they appear radiant, abundant, and seductive, as if capable of containing every longing, yet upon closer inspection, they carry an unreal, illusory quality and an inexpressible sense of emptiness. They serve both as a gentle buffer against the stress of reality and as a harsh scrutiny into the insatiable desires and void at the core of human nature. “Wild Dream” is at once a projection of myself and a reflection of the human inner state—at once barren and fervent, lucid and illusionary.
On Emotion as a Dormant Force
3812: You describe your paintings as vessels for carrying dormant emotions concealed beneath daily trivialities, waiting to be awakened by a particular atmosphere. How conscious are you of orchestrating this awakening? Do you see yourself as guiding the viewer toward emotional recognition, or simply creating the conditions for it to occur naturally and leave different individuals to interpret in their way?
Shang: I treat painting as a vessel for latent emotions. Those feelings obscured by the routines of daily life, I deliberately draw out within the canvas—constructing an atmosphere, creating the conditions for them to slowly awaken. I do not act as a guide who insists on how the work must be understood; I am only responsible for building the emotional “field.” Light, colour, texture, and space all quietly stir the viewer’s own memories and sensations. The final interpretation is left entirely to each individual’s lived experience.
On Artistic Influence – René Magritte
3812: You have cited René Magritte as a source of inspiration. Magritte once said that his paintings “conceal nothing… They evoke mystery… It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing; it is unknowable.” It may sound disjoined with your creative motive of embedding those concealed emotions in your imageries.
Do you perceive a philosophical alignment / misalignment between your practice and his? Where do you see nuances or divergences between your suggestive visual language and his conception of mystery?
Shang: René Magritte has indeed been a profound influence on my visual thinking and artistic approach. In my youth, I drew great inspiration from his work, and I often find myself in dialogue with—comparing, reflecting on, and distinguishing—his philosophy of images and my own creative position. His statement, “It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable,” may seem at odds with my focus on latent emotion, yet at a deeper level we converge, while ultimately diverging in crucial ways.
What moves me most about Magritte is his distrust of appearances. Using the most ordinary, unassuming, and undramatic objects—pipes, apples, doors, windows, garments, skies—he disrupts our habitual ways of perceiving, making the familiar unexpectedly alien, and certainty suddenly suspect. I likewise resist reducing an image to the illustration of an idea. I work with recognisable forms, perceptible spaces, and inhabitable scenes, yet through subtle shifts in scale, proportion, atmosphere, and context, I gently poke through the facade of reality, exposing the ambiguity and uncertainty beneath. Both of us use images to awaken mystery rather than language to explain the world; both invite the viewer to pause, to look again, rather than to grasp meaning at a glance and move on.
The divergence lies in our understanding, origin, and direction of “mystery.” Magritte’s “mystery” is objective and ontological, gesturing toward the unknowable—without origin, without purpose, beyond decoding, and inexhaustible. Perhaps his aim is to suspend meaning, filter out symbolism, and close off all paths of interpretation, confronting us with the philosophical fact that “mystery is simply mystery, and cannot be articulated.” In this sense, mystery itself seems to be the destination.
In my practice, however, mystery is not the final end. The suggestiveness, openness, ambiguity, and ineffable atmosphere within my work are all grounded in emotion and inner experience. The “mystery” I construct serves to hold those latent feelings that cannot be contained by language or accommodated within the structures of reality—trance, emptiness, unease, attachment, solitude, longing, loss, tenderness, and vulnerability. These emotions are real, yet often obscured by the routines of daily life; difficult to define, yet capable of being awakened through atmosphere and carried by the image.
This difference is not an opposition, but two parallel paths: he approaches the boundary of mystery with rational clarity, while I reach into its softer, more personal, and inward terrain through emotional sincerity.
On Life Experience and Artistic Evolution
3812: Having experienced marriage, parenthood, and personal loss, how have these life events reshaped your visual language or thematic concerns? Has your understanding of “荒梦” (Desolate Dream) evolved over time?
Shang: Marriage, becoming a parent, and experiencing the loss of loved ones are, for me, not merely markers of life stages, but forces that have reshaped the very core of my creative spirit. Step by step, they have transformed the way I observe the world, understand emotion, and conceive of the idea of “Wild Dream.”
Before entering these phases of life, my work was more rooted in a youthful questioning of self-existence. It focused on solitude, confusion, a sense of weightlessness, and inner conflict. The emotional tone of the images was sharper, more detached—charged with a probing of the boundaries of reality and an unease toward the unknown. At that time, my understanding of “Wild Dream” leaned toward a desolation born of individual spiritual struggle: an unreachable emptiness, an unbridgeable isolation, and a bewilderment before the meaning of life.
Gradually, through the passage and tempering of time, I began to turn my attention to the genuine connections and empathy between lives—to sense the emotions, rhythms, and experiences of others. I became more aware of the weight of time, the preciousness of the everyday, and the meaning of companionship. These experiences grounded and balanced the confusion and conflict within my subconscious. It is precisely through this deepening of lived experience that my understanding of “Wild Dream” has evolved, leading me to return to this series after more than a decade.
The “Wild Dream” I engage with now is a spiritual wilderness that persists even after experiencing love, companionship, responsibility, and loss. It still carries a sense of desolation, the illusion of dreams, and existential uncertainty—but it is now also imbued with attachment, tenderness, appreciation, and resilience.
