Frustrated Aesthetics: Bei Shui's Garden of Desire 

By Gu Zhenqing 

    Bei Shui was born from Chang Bai Shan in the northeast of China, he used to live around mountains, with stars in the sky, when he was young he lived in a natural area. Living in the era of rapid transformation in China, Bei Shui got cultural resources and inspiration from both Western and Eastern, traditional and modern. Since the beginning of 1990s, he began his career as a freelance artist lived in Dong Cun village of Beijing. He had performances, installation artworks and made paintings. Around the year 2000, he experienced an overload in his personal survival in a state of  enthusiasm – lost – eacaping - and struggling. He made paintings to reflect himself as an artist. Though in his painting works, he searched for something related to humanity and human conscience, rational spirit and the ultimate value of life. His works: we can see, are from fish which belong to Zhuangzi's theory, then another theory of the vast universe, and then to poppy flowers in the garden. His works evolved from concrete to the metaphysical, and back to concrete. His works are dealing with Chinese cultural elements, to express his interior. In fact, his childhood memories related to the quiet and wild nature influence him still. His heart fights against the modern city and the modern life. Bei Shui's dream of life is bright, but it is just a utopian dream, the society will continue to develop.   

    His Garden of Desire was his concept of life and society. He recognized the phenomenon of flowers and society and its essence, and perfectly created works to depict them. Bei Shui's Chinese traditional concept which was people and nature living harmoniously together. When he created the poppy flowers, he was also thinking about modern society and its ecological disaster. The poppy flowers were just living specimens of the modern society. They are very beautiful and have great vitality. They are metaphor of evil: drugs and death. Underneath our material society, the poppy flowers' appearance represents the culture and morals of our society and people. Poppy flowers had different states of living: reproductive, expanding and variation. They were not only representing people, but the forms and their compositions are within artist's intention. The flowers in his work were strange and fascinating. In every flower, there is a black hole in its centre that implied something horrible. Maybe the poppy flowers' gorgeous look and their drug function were just meanings of Bei Shui's works. In the Garden of Desire, his attitude towards the reality turned to be objective and quiet. His dreams were expressed in his works. The image of poppy flowers was a result of Bei Shui's idea and concept. He was questioned the environment for humans. His puzzle was: Why human's restless pursuit can't get rid of its ugly sides?

 (Translated by Mao Ju, English edited by Darryl Isaacs)