Speaking of those important solo exhibitions, from "Paradise" (2002) to "Dream Maker" (2011), from "The Most Romantic Time" (2012) to "Utopia"  (2015), all of them involve an imaginary and ideal world.

Great Happiness  212x140cm  2015-2017

　　It is a transformative process from internal state of mind to external conception, from a lesser self to a greater self. Particularly, at the stage of "Utopia", my art ideas experienced a fundamental change. I resorted to a more rational approach rather than a sentimental one that expressed emotions and feelings; I turned from Taoist wisdom of man being an integral part of nature to an exploration of the source of mankind and universal value; I moved on from creating in my own world like a hermit to probing into and questioning current issues; I evolved from an art "Dream Maker" to a founder of art "Utopia". I even came to compare myself to the "God" who creates everything in my art world. This "Utopia" resembles "The Peach Blossom Spring" created by Tao Yuanming, a Chinese poet who lived during the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty: "The wild flowers growing under them were fresh and lovely, and fallen petals covered the ground…a broad, flat area with imposing houses, good fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry trees, bamboo, and the like…The elderly and children all seemed to be happy and enjoying themselves. " The oriental "Peach Blossom Spring" is quite similar to the occidental "Promised Land". According to Old Testament o Genesis, the LORD made a covenant with Abraham, ancestor of Israelis, to give his descendants "The Land of Milk and Honey"-known as Canaan in ancient times and Jerusalem in modern day-that is the "Promised Land". However, Jerusalem has been scarred by intermittent wars for nearly a thousand years with no sign of peace until today. People will have to experience years of wars and blood shedding before they could embrace the promised land of milk and honey. It is the cruel and tough reality that inspires artists ever more to make their dreams with art and "utopia" with ideals!

Great Freedom  140x212cm  Oil on Canvas  2015-2018

　　I've been switching freely between the reality and ideal, namely the two parallel spaces, over the years. Life moves on, and the ideal continues to move forward. The art utopia is gradually taking shape and elevates to a higher level. I have been improving the personalized ecological chain of the utopia from plane display to multi-dimensional presentation. The utopia is not flawless. At the end of the day, you can still see harm, broken pieces and even blood shedding and death. Everything existing in the real world is reflected in the utopia. The only difference is that the latter puts on a wonderful shell. The ultimate beauty will always somehow bring out a melancholy feeling in you, because it is too beautiful to last. That is what we call "mono no aware" (empathy toward things) in the east. Every civilization is both transient and permanent. I was deeply impressed by Pompeii in 2005 because I was overwhelmed by the searing pain of the abrupt collapse of a great civilization. The Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan of China in 2008 and the tsunami in Japan four years later took tens of thousands of people's life away in an instant. Human beings are so tiny in face of the majesty of nature. We should only hold ourselves responsible for wars, and accelerated deterioration of man's living environment, as well as many other challenges.

Harmony No. 1  2014  212x140cm  Oil on Canvas

　　In my "Utopia", I expressed my concerns and thinking of the real world implicitly. For the ceramic sculpture collection Death , I made use of the fragility and eternity of ceramics to crystalize the fleeting moment of demise of civilization. The intervention of ceramics renders intangible, perfect and permanent spiritual symbols tangible and powerful, fragile and capricious. Its intervention converts the happy and carefree peach blossom spring to a disastrous paradise lost.

Harmony No. 2  212x140cm

　　Building the "Utopia" is a bittersweet experience for me. I created in the real world step by step, but my hands were transfigured into wings with countless tentacles, allowing me to fly in the "Utopia" and instilling my will in every detail: the earnest eye, robust limbs, powerful dance, the well-informed and self-assured manner, the energy that creates and soothes everything and a sense of ritual as pious as a religion. Everywhere is permeated by "Aseity", and "Aseity" is everywhere.

　　Fundamentally speaking, everything exists for a reason. I am not a Buddhist or religious at all. However, deeply embedded in the oriental culture, you will be influenced by what you see and hear imperceptibly. For example, the thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in oriental culture will always throb in your blood, whether you like it or not. The pastoral life I enjoyed growing up has shaped my artistic preference for hermits and the thought that man constitutes an integral part of nature. As I grow older and see more of the world, under the influence of western universal value, I begin to turn my attention to human civilization and larger natural environment. Certainly, these thoughts are not mutually independent; rather, they co-exist and interact with each other. It is just that the priority can vary at different stages. When I was in my twenties, I majored in oil painting at Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), and I was intrigued by western art, literature and philosophy. As I left CAFA in around 2000, I began to focus on traditional Chinese culture, so I acquainted myself with many traditional Chinese murals and sculptures, ninety percent of which dealt with Buddhism. This has more or less influenced my later creation imperceptibly, such as the idea of "aseity" in Buddhism. "Zi Zai Guanyin" (i.e., aseity in English) also known as "the goddess who watches the world in an absolutely self-sufficient way", pulls all struggling living creatures out of pain to a state of happiness. The composition of my work Watching The World is modeled on The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. Those male figures are replaced by females to express "my concerns for the current world".

Watching The World  2011-2014  212x420cm  Oil on Canvas

　　Similar in many ways, the east and the west have made many corresponding points. The east proposed "aseity", and the west offered "Cogito, ergo sum", literally I think, therefore I am, which can be seen as my interpretation of "aseity": only when I think rationally will I achieve the true value of being. Reason allows me to demolish all kinds of so-called "established concepts" to let true thinking infiltrate into my own life. That is when my being truly makes sense. In art creation, "aseity" means that artists have to find a way to instill various consciousness and thinking of "self" in their art.

Disciple  2014  75x420cm  Oil on Canvas

　　German philosopher Martin Heidegger offered his interpretation of "the question of man's being". He held that man as "being" faces "nothingness", is fundamentally isolated and suffers from constant concerns and pains. He contended that the world is unknowable or incomprehensible to man, or the world is absurd, so man is condemned to constant anxiety and fear. It is anxiety and fear that reveals the being of man. As he said, man has the freedom of self-determination and self-control. Anxiety and fear enables the being of man. Only in the case of being can we come to the point of the freedom of self-determination, which is connected with light and happiness. As far as I'm concerned, Heidegger is too pessimistic and sentimental, though I do agree that man has to develop an awareness of unpredictable possibility, which corresponds with the oriental wisdom of "thriving in calamity and perishing in soft living." An artist with independent thinking and an awareness of unpredictable possibility will not settle for what is immediately ahead and what are seemingly fabulous things. Conversely, he or she will not only deduce what is coming in the future, but track down the root to discover the essence of things. Only art produced in this way can trigger profound resonance.

Vipassana  50x160cmx8  2017  Zhao Mengge

　　In the "Aseity" collection, what I seek to emphasize by using the word "aseity" is not "Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara", but self, personality and the state of self being: free, poised, inclusive, compassionate, caring for the world, and infinite power.

　　My ceramics installation A Myriad of Living Things  takes all creatures as the subject-matter, and thus consists of a matrix of 300 men in meditation on clouds. Man is nothing but a tiny creature in majestic nature. Chapter XVI of Tao Te Ching says, "all?things?howsoever?they?flourish?return?to?the?root?from?which?they?grew." All living things tell their own stories every day to survive. Tough and ambitious people enjoy a wonderful and successful life, while losers and disheartened people wither away and abandon themselves to decay; those who are content with their status quo live a mediocre life.

A Myriad of Living Things Ceramics Installation  2018

　　A person in solitude is not exactly lonely, because he is already powerful enough being alone. Only the weak seeks to live collectively, which is how phrases like "all living things" and "hustling and bustling" come into being. A small portion of the weak strives to become strong. Struggling a lifetime just for a silver lining, resembling the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. A belief is the original driving force and catalyst that enable the transformation. With the belief, all living things can play a magnificent rhyme, although it might be "Ode to Joy" for one person and "Fate Symphony" for another.

　　The existence of the universe might be nothing more than the result of the Creator's attempt to kill boredom, but the living things are trapped in it. For most people, bitterness, depression and anxiety are actually bothering them in real life. It is like films are a form of entertainment for the audience, but for characters in films, they have actually experienced all kinds of feelings-happy or angry, sad or joyous, love or hate, and struggled with the death and loss of loved ones. The Creator overlooks how fate plays with living things.

　　I created Great Happiness to tell the world you can always embrace great happiness on the occasions of childbirth, old age, sickness and funerals, as long as you do not fall into the abyss of wrongdoings. Lu Xun said in Wild Grass that "The Past life has died. I exult over its death, because from this I know that it once existed. The dead life has decayed. I exult over its decay, because from this I know that it has not been empty." Mr. Lu knows that everyone is going to die eventually, which needs no lament. What matters is whether living creates value, whether death is worthy. The existence and demise of life enlighten future generations and prompts history to make reflection, which are reasons for great happiness.

Rural Times  2014  140x556cm  Oil on Canvas  Zhao Mengge

　　Man cherishes different happiness at different stages with increasingly higher standards. In face of recent happiness, previous ones become negligible. As you grow older, your will not be easily stirred emotionally, and you will prefer strong tea over light tea. There are fewer and fewer things that could make you happy. Even romantic love becomes dispensable. Fame and wealth are no longer your concerns. Nothing seems to really matter. At this point, your folks pass away all of a sudden or you are hit by natural or man-made disasters. As you look back, all those little things become endearing and gripping memory. When you filter out pain and misfortune, you will be left with happiness…

　　As an artist, I have no time for mundane trivial matters or simple happiness. Artistic creation is the only thing that I cherish dearly for a long period of time, which I have largely kept to myself. I do not have too many emotions to spare in my life, and art is there to sway it. Only a satisfactory work makes me happy for a while.

​The Land of Promise  2014-2015  300x600cm  Oil on Canvas  Zhao Mengge

　　Art creating is indeed a process of pushing boundaries which is the only source of great happiness. It symbolizes superior spiritual pleasure and abundance, and tranquility of the inner world. Extravagant life, love and hatred, as well as fame and wealth, are superficial and fleeting. Only creation breeds eternity and soothes the soul. I suppose this is my great happiness.

Beijing, May 6, 2018