Wenhui Hao
Flowing Wounds-Painting Trauma, Objects of Ecstasy, and Desire

“I observe figs cut open, revealing their densely packed seeds like teeth. They are plump and moist, resembling the shape offemale genitalia. I photograph papayas being cut open, with seeds and flesh becoming a muddy mess, the flash playing the role of an intruder. I insert my fingers into a dragon fruit, and red liquid mixed with black seeds gushes out of the hole. I know I am committing violence. I use a spoon to scrape the skin of a watermelon that has become so thin its veins are visible. The watermelon emits a dull and ambiguous thud, as if I am tapping on its uterine wall, stroking its bald head, and caressing its bones.

What truly pierces me about watermelons is not only that their seemingly round and plump bodies are actually filled with the heavy rivers of silt and sand, but also that when scraped clean spoonful by spoonful, their thin green skins, with veins clearly visible yet hard and translucent, carefully cradle the blood they nurtured.”

"My body is a haunted house"

Introduction to the first project of the semester:

“I have been observing and painting food for a while now, recognizing the profound connections between appetite and desire. It involves primal urges, a rejection of intellect, and a craving for the fulfillment of desires. The process of dismantling and cooking food is inherently violent, an indulgent manipulation serving as an outlet for suppressed desires.

I once found myself fascinated by hollowed-out, seeded fruits. When I peeled them and extracted the seeds from their cavities, it felt as if I were performing a surgical abortion.

In my recent series of paintings, I depict a whole chicken being dissected, emptied, and stuffed with sauce, ready for marination. In the Chinese context, the metaphorical meaning of "chicken" is associated with the derogatory term for a promiscuous woman. The chicken's back is covered with holes I've pierced with knives and forks. The form of the chicken, with its enlarged cavity and spread legs, resembles a statue from ancient times depicting childbirth.

The creative process unfolds before me with a naked canvas standing tall. I employ needles, threads, and fabrics to explore the concepts of "sewing" and "repairing." I allow parts of it to spill beyond the confines of the frame, resembling wings, capes, limbs that dance but eventually stiffen and droop in exhaustion.

I choose intimate fabrics sourced from my worn stockings, tight-fitting garments, frayed lace edges, and some shimmering satin swaying with the wind. They have rubbed against and layered upon my skin, offering a textured poetic expression.

Clothing serves as a conduit between the naked body and external influences. It becomes the soil for cultivating identity, consumption, power, and resistance.

Intimate garments don't belong to the body, yet they shape its form. They derive a semblance of a healthy body from the shame imposed by others. They encapsulate diseases and pains, encompassing hair strands, skin flakes, severed limbs, ulcers, distilling every nauseating facet—faces one wishes to discard yet struggles to detach from.

The process of sewing together intimate garments is akin to combing through and entangling the remnants of desire.

Latex is gelatinous, thick, and flows slowly when shaken or tilted, yet becomes transparent and retains the texture of violent strokes and fingerprints when it dries. The fabric gradually becomes glossy and rigid, exhibiting reflective, embossed, seductive, pleasing, and consumable qualities.

Latex is a comrade; every stiff inch of fabric is trying to mechanically conceal its desires through dynamic movements. Latex itself is a form of sensuality—transparent, smooth, and extremely shiny—metaphorically suggesting temptation, tearing, and isolation from fertility.

Latex is a blockade, a sense of suffocation, a paradoxical attempt to hide desires in plain sight.

In my painting process, I conceal clothing, originally protective shells, within the layers of oil painting medium and pigments. Subsequently, I paint on top of them, treating this act as a process of restoration and pathological treatment.

In painting, transcending representational and narrative approaches involves turning towards abstraction and turning towards the "sensation" of the image, as referred to by Cézanne. "What is drawn in the painting is the body, not as an object to be represented, but as a body experienced through such sensation.”

Deleuze, in "The Logic of Sensation," mentions that painting itself is hysteria. "Painting transforms intellectual pessimism into a kind of nervous optimism." The process of painting is fast-paced and powerful. For me, the perception of the scraper and brush swiftly sweeping across the canvas is a metaphor for the surgical procedure of dilation and curettage, akin to cutting away necrotic flesh and treating diseased parts of the body.

Swiftly destroying a portion of the artwork and then regaining a sense of balance in the composition is a form of healing.

The phrase "My body is a haunted house" echoes in my mind, both as an accusation and with every breath I take after undergoing the abortion procedure. The process of painting is akin to dismantling, shattering, and reconstructing my own haunted abode, brick by brick."

“ The intimate connection between myself and the canvas is profoundly strengthened by the canvas's inherent elasticity. The hand holding the brush senses every impact on the canvas during the painting process, feeling the full rebound. The term "impact" carries an ambiguous discourse—it is a vibrant and sensual action in itself, rough yet dignified, reminiscent of some primitive ritual.

The pigments and oil on the canvas, akin to bodily fluids, create ambiguous and colorful traces in the intervals between the canvas's rebounds, accompanied by the muffled sounds of "thud-thud." The repeated pressing and lifting of the brush leave material accumulations with central depressions and protruding edges.

When the tip of the pen was swept over the completely hardened, stacked fabric, the depths of the folds and depressuries were private, dark, and I had never descended. It was as if I were kissing the labia, as if I were the source of all violence, as if I were engaging in a perfect assault that I never knew existed.

Then, as I repeatedly upset the balance of the picture and repaired it with the brush, it was as if I were performing an ancient and tragic healing pattern over and over again: filling the body's unhealed sores forever.”

-Wenhui Hao，2024