There is no doubt that Hou Zhuowu’s works are embedded with many sorts of historical metaphors. When analyzing his paintings in this complicated system people often make associations with the iconographic traditions of the Middle Ages. At the same time, Hou Zhuowu devotes his efforts to excavate into the subconsciousness of Dante’s dream. Being an eastern version of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, his series of works depict grave and stern mountain peaks, odd turquoise stones, forgotten dust, and numerous dream-like images. He calls this wondrous journey “The Wanderings of a Monk”, hinting on his hidden religious inclinations.

　　‘Sacrifice’ in Hou Zhuowu’s dreamland implies forgotten consecration... broken wings, opened up bodies and confined beasts of prey. This dismal imagery gives people the feeling of falling into the nether world. Dante lamented:

　　“Wherein I stood. For certain on the brink

　　I found me of the lamentable vale,

　　The dread abyss, that joins a thund'rous sound

　　Of plaints innumerable. Dark and deep,

　　And thick with clouds o'erspread, mine eye in vain

　　Explor'd its bottom, nor could aught discern.”

　　(Dante’s Divine Comedy, The Vision of Hell, Canto IV)

　　The intention of sacrifice is buried in the thick and dark ink, making the elegant springs and mountains disappear, showing a seldom seen ferocious beauty. In the painting ‘Desire to Wriggle’ dry bones, gold crowns and magnificent gowns are piled like mountains, forgotten in desolate valleys. The alarmed wayfarer is unable to shake off the artist’s will. Hou Zhuowu writes: “The wind gradually grows, light becomes more intense, and the path ahead increasingly becomes more rugged. This is the foreknown fate of a climber.”

　　In an reluctant attempt to be playful in his paintings, Zhuowu surprisingly merges traditional ink painting styles and ukiyo-e, European Reinassance and pop art styles. In the series ‘Dali of the Evening Series’, Dali, sitting in a sofa, is made into a metaphor. If the observer looks in detail, he should be able to find an unexpected mustache coming out of his nose, this undoubtedly being an allegory to a historical allegory. Hou Zhuowu makes use of a large amount of deformations in the background, evolving the brush strokes with smooth short curved and straight lines creating a sense of speed and depicting mist, flowers, city walls, disordered bamboo and atypical forms. The melting watches, symbols of Dali, are hanging from tree branches painted in ink wash style, so at the same time the panick-stricken Dali becomes the symbol itself.

　　Hou Zhuowu’s solicitude for Western culture and his large amount of reading has led his art to the exploration of the riddle of post-modernism. The main theme of the exploration is not so particular; the crux is in the particular way the artist adopts. Through the transformation of traditional ink painting style, the artist creatively expresses a totally new concept and disposition. ‘Heritage • Memory’ represents a typical corner of the post modern world. The travelers in this world possess a common particular conflictive dreamland, and the traveler is drawn into the conflict of the self. Their collective way of creating dreams uses plasticity and discharges residues damaging historical heritage and memory, initiating the debate between the past and present. When the conflict of the pope, communism and ideology is put in the dim wilderness, Hou Zhuowu’s creates metaphors on the debris of these forgotten concepts. In the form of ink and wash they are lightly swiped by post modernism into the dark case of art history.

　　The continuous appearance of mountain peaks in Hou Zhuowu’s paintings undoubtedly shows his deep infatuation with cliffs, with consecration, with harsh environments, with the nether world and the purgatory, and even with the traumatized historical memory. Hou Zhuowu hardly conceals the cruelty of this journey. It is illusory, however it is also extremely realistic and cruel. When we awake in this world, we discover that we have fallen in a dream. With excited gasping, we climb up from the deep and secluded valley, examining closely the meaning of the mountain peak. In this strange and deceitful world, the climber, bustling with activity, mercilessly accepts the selection to be made, his face perhaps expressing longing or confusion, or perhaps conveying ruthlessness. The difference between Dante is that the nether world that Hou Zhuowu faces is an emptier, more chaotic and dejected world. He gradually moves alone, overcoming all the hardships and obstacles in the journey. Dante, at least, has Virgil, who shows him the road that leads to heaven. In the post modernist world, the Chinese word “xingjiao”, meaning approximately “wanderings of a monk”, implies a loneliness without direction, a grief that can seemingly eternally illuminate every forgotten individual.

　　In the series of works “Forging Ahead”, the journey of a man on a horse becomes like a completely forgotten dreamworld. The horse that looks more like a carcass keeps forging ahead. If what forges ahead is merely a carcass, then this kind of forward march is undoubtedly absurd. The thin and worn horse walks ahead, and the artist encounters these realities alongside. At the time the sunlight sheds through the dense forest onto the horse, this sort of absurdity becomes clarified, but the inherent detachment does not allow for any change.

　　Using this metaphor, the artist suggests to us that the debris of history has been heartlessly forgotten, as if it had never existed in the first place, though it makes constant attempts to make noise in the dream to take possession of the whole nightmare from anew. But something always exists up above the historical debris, and the artist goes as far as as putting an image of the Chinese Pavillion in the Shanghai World Expo on a high ridge. This complex assemblage of history, politics and culture seems to posses a radiating strength, blocking off all routes.

　　Hou Zhuowu discriminates between all sorts of political voices in the journey. There are people who think that summits allure to the homeland... the last nation. And other people believe that home is rather in the low parts of secluded valleys. One should go back to the past, submerging oneself in the depths of the nightmare. For an artist, these arguments may not after all help in life’s truths. Dante finally walks towards “The Last Fantasy”, just as is described in the ending of The Divine Comedy:

　　Had not a flash darted athwart my mind,

　　And in the spleen unfolded what it sought.

　　Here vigour fail'd the tow'ring fantasy:

　　But yet the will roll'd onward, like a wheel

　　In even motion, by the Love impell'd,

　　That moves the sun in heav'n and all the stars.

　　(Dante’s Divine Comedy, The Vision of Heaven, Canto VVVIII)

　　Dante’s world view in the end consummates into a sacred comedy, as implied in the title The Divine Comedy, but the post modern world does not have the good fortune of having Newton’s world view. Hou Zhuowu is instead able to express the most profound loneliness of this world; the love that keeps pushing the wheels steadily forward has long ago been lost, and the sun and the stars have undoubtedly stopped their innate cycles. Everything shows an irregular drift. In Hou Zhuowu’s nightmares there is no last illusion, which implies that he understands illusion as being natural and eternal. Thus he chooses to see the journey as something with differing scenery and circumstances, and openly tells us that this is life’s last reality. As Zhuangzi’s said: “The dust flies about and living creatures are blown about amongst each other” . In this metaphor, precisely, history becomes the illusion itself; the debris drifts in the void, just as if chasing the wind and clutching at the shadows under the sunlight.

　　Our insight into the phenomenal world forces us to face the cruel moments of waking up. One wakes up from an oriental dream but is unable tell apart reality from dream. Zhuangzi, in his Dream of a Butterfly says: “Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

　　Looking at the works, we experience the abovementioned complexity and ancientness... this is a rare thing. As for the traditional tools Zhuowu employs, I think that since the artist has the ability to make use of the wisdom of both ancient and modern times, and of the western and eastern world, he is able to build on the aesthetic possibility of those experiences. There is just no need to think about what materials the artist uses. As for the relation between the mind and the object, the material world is really always changing and manifold, but the messages it presents will remain unchanging.

　　Sunday, 15th of July 2012