The theme of this year's painting clearly states one - the makeup of desire. People's various desires are wrapped under various makeups. Desires are the intertwining of happiness and pain in life. Either straightforward or subtle, they will appear in makeup, forming a profound look of an era.
Inches: 15.7 x 15.7 in
Size without the frame: 40 x 40 cm
Country: China
Date: 2025
Materials: Acrylic painting on board
Condition: well preserved
Creative themes and style | My works revolve around the creative concept of "The land of humanity, and the people upon it" . The people in the painting are people in nature, and the lines, shapes, and colors are close to nature. The nature in the painting is nature in the eyes of humans, existing in interaction with humans.I don’t pursue a series of works with a fixed and continuous style. I hope that the style of the pictures will synchronize with the changes in my life and always remain oscillating. The performance of the work must be in sync with the development of one's own life in order to be Sincere and powerful.Ideas are later.
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Artwork Interpretation
Subject Matter: From “bodily event” to “tactile duration”
The painting continues to focus on fragments of the body, but compared to A Restless Summer, it feels more restrained and abstract. The hands and folds of flesh capture a moment stretched in time. The work transforms “scratching” from a fleeting gesture into a sustained tactile duration, leading the viewer to drift between skin and nerve.
Form: Linear hand gestures
The hands are outlined in a line-drawing manner, with joints simplified into rhythmic curves. At the center, a vertical white slit acts as a cooling passage, flanked by magenta–violet bands that turn the flesh into ribbons. This is a “weightless body,” in direct contrast to the heavier textures of the previous piece.
Composition: Arcs against verticals
The main structure is built from two sweeping arcs (the folds) crossed by a vertical white strip, surrounded by a large field of mustard yellow. On the right edge, a halo of blue-green creates a cool boundary, forming a layered tension between heat inside and coolness outside. The slant of the fingertips pushes space outward, creating a pull between proximity and withdrawal.
Color: Heated yellow fields and cooling white fissures
The ground is laid in warm ochre and mustard yellow, while fingertips and folds flare into cobalt blue, lavender purple, and carmine, generating an optical vibration of temperature shifts. White acts as a breath of relief. Compared with the fleshy orange-red of A Restless Summer, this work leans more toward color-field flatness, making the heat feel like light rather than blood.
Brushwork: Thin washes and ribbon-like strokes
The surface is pressed into semi-transparent layers, with arcing traces of rapid back-brushing visible around the fingers. Scattered blue dots appear like beads of sweat or nerve sparks. The brushwork shifts from kneading to brushing, transforming pain into aftershock.
Content and Thematic Expression: From self-sensation to self-regulation
If the previous work emphasized “loss of control in the heat,” this one points toward “self-regulation.” The act of scratching remains, but it is tamed by color fields and geometric boundaries, almost like a ritual of cooling both body and mind.
Mood and Emotion: Restrained heat
The mustard yellow feels like sun-bleached plaster—enduring and oppressive. Over it, the magenta folds pulse, conveying desire and unease. The painting sustains high temperature in a muted voice, embodying a “silent agitation.”
Unconventional Perspective: Skin as a color field
The artist translates skin into a color field: broad planes of color carry emotion, while action is reduced to lines moving across the field. Waves, flesh folds, and ribbons complete a continuum of transformation across the series, shifting from natural forms to abstract language.
Similar Works Reference
Henri Matisse: Flat color fields and linear elegance, resonating with the mustard-yellow planes and simplified gestures here.
Jenny Saville: Close-up views of flesh, different in weight, but parallel in using skin as a central subject.
Egon Schiele: Nervous linear gestures and tense hand postures, echoing the line-based hands of this work.
Francis Bacon: The psychological pressure of hot-cold contrasts, comparable to the white fissure against the yellow field.
Cecily Brown: Oscillation between figuration and abstraction, showing how energy flows between gesture and color field.
Recommendation: These works, through their explorations of color fields, gestural line, and bodily perception, provide meaningful parallels to A Restless Summer2, illuminating its shift from dense corporeality to planar heat.
Q1: Why is the central white slit so striking?
A1: It serves as an axis of cooling and division, cutting through the heated yellow field and creating a visual “breathing space” where pain and relief coexist.
Q2: Why are the hands rendered in almost sketch-like outlines?
A2: The outline reduces physical weight, emphasizing gesture as rhythm rather than mass, making the act of scratching the true subject of the painting.
Q3: What does the pairing of mustard yellow and magenta folds express?
A3: They create a temperature inversion: yellow conveys the sustained burn of exposure, while magenta represents the pulsing heat of nerves, together forming an atmosphere of “scorching yet contained” emotion.
Q4: In what kind of exhibition setting would this work fit best?
A4: It would suit contexts of contemporary figurative expressionism or action-based painting, as well as exhibitions focused on sensory thresholds and body narratives. Displayed alongside A Restless Summer, it could form a contrast between indoor compression and outdoor diffusion.
Q5: What gives this piece its value as a collectible?
A5: Its compact 40×40cm size makes it versatile for display; the fusion of color-field and gestural language and its role within a cohesive series enhance its curatorial potential. It holds strong relevance for contemporary body-focused themes and serial narrative collections.
What should I pay attention to when buying an artwork or its derivatives?
A: Click here to view ARTPHILOSO's Guide for Collectors.
More paintings from this series：
A Restless Summer 1 A Restless Summer 3 A Restless Summer 4 A Restless Summer 5
A Restless Summer 6 A Restless Summer 7 A Restless Summer 8 A Restless Summer 9 A Restless Summer 10
A Restless Summer 12 A Restless Summer 13 A Restless Summer 14 A Restless Summer 15 A Restless Summer 16
