Xu Hong's Garden - Maze of the Middle Class

Through the eyes of his figures, Nanjing painter Xu Hong probes and examines the deepest corners of the human heart. Inspired by the landscape and gardens of Southern China where he lives, his latest series takes them as settings for his narratives. From within these gardens, macabre scenes are unravelled.

One painting sees a young boy try to chisel a boat in the middle of a lake, another sees a scuba diver just about to emerge from a lake that is set within a traditional Chinese rock garden and pavilion. The artist reflects on the moral dilemma, the inconsistency of inheriting Chinese tradition and culture.

The dilemma of the modern Chinese middle-class which he delineates is just like the danger-laden labyrinth in Crete; where the public life we face and the multiple identities we have to deal with in our lives and the value system that we inevitably construct.