If we say that artists are children of the times, then FENG Zhengjie was born as a painter in 1989. In his early days, FENG Zhengjie was attracted especially by such artists as Michelangelo, Raffaello, Cezanne, Xu Bei-hong and Qi Bai-shi(note 1) until he encountered the Tiananmen Affair at the age of 21. The experience led him to acquire a critical viewpoint for his society and to establish an independent status socially and artistically. What should be noted about this process is that FENG Zhengjie rejected his compatriots works including Xu Bei-hong and the Chinese official style of art (i.e. Soviet-type socialist realism) as well as the art of Western Europe including Michelangelo and Cezanne as relics of academism, and that created another art, an experimental art. There is no meaning in saying that his knowledge about European art and its history was too limited, because modern China had actually been a closed country for almost half a century since World War II till the Mao Tso-tong and Deng Xiao-ping period, at least concerning the art-related situations outside the country. Breaking down the closed status started with "85 Art Movement" (note 2) in the art field, and with " Socio-economical Reformation" in the economic-social field. We should remember that only 20 years have passed since the "85 Art Movement". It was just recently that in China, still maintaining (or pretending to maintain) "Chinese-type Socialism", colleges of art began to allow other types of art than the official "Soviet-type socialist realism". Knowing nothing about modern art, FENG Zhengjie came to Chongqing, the important city of Sichuan province, for his study at Sichuan Art Institute. However, the breakout of the Tiananmen Affair completely changed his way of life, giving him a chance to review the Chinese society where he was born and has been living. "This affair broke out at the same time when I started to think deeper about the Chinese society with an increasing interest in activities of the first Chinese avant-garde artists," he said about himself, "I tried to anatomize the popular culture to solve the perplexity that I had been feeling deep in my heart."(note 3) The word "anatomize" here is related to the title of a series of paintings, "Anatomy", which he started in the year of graduation from Sichuan Art Institute. FENG Zhengjie spent his childhood in a small village where he could see only some pieces of traditional, popular imagery as paintings. Then he went to Chongqing, finding the various types of new popular images which had resulted from sudden Westernization and mammonism. Thus, being surrounded by "kitsch", popular images throughout his early years, he was seeking what he really wanted to express亅an authentic "painting", different from any of the existing images亅and the way to realize it. Eventually rejecting all the existing types of painting, FENG Zhengjie chose to create his own art on the model of certain popular images of the past or the recent-past in China; the former are represented by popular paintings such as New Year Images (see illustration 1), while the latter by commercial advertising posters made in the 1930s in China. He used these images purposely and crucially to produce authentic paintings, not so-called subcultural works. Generally, subcultural works are not poisonous; the word "poison" is not suited to subcultural things. Nevertheless, the nature of FENG Zhengjie's paintings lies in the poison亅beautiful poison亅that they secretly contain. Of course the beautiful poison was not achieved easily; the turning point for FENG Zhengjie seems to be in the series entitled "Coolness". His works made before the "Coolness" series, which are represented by the "Romantic Trip" series, are excellent as parodies but not sufficiently poisonous. For example, in the "Romantic Trip" series, he succeeded in expressing human beings invaded by a mass-consumption society by transforming the phase of a popular picture of a married couple into one of typical Chinese kitsch images, that is, patterned subcultural images. However, we feel it lacks something; it is not sufficiently strong. The feeling of insufficiency or weakness comes from the looks of the couple depicted. While their lips are smiling, their "looks" or gazes suggest some doubt, hesitation or anxiety with each other (see illustration 2). Although the various nuances expressed there are interesting, it seems to me that FENG Zhengjie went no further than depicting real looks of human beings in this series; it is not so easy to depict human faces. What should be noted first in the "Coolness" series (see illustration 3) is that human bodies were painted bare, which is important when we compare it with the "Butterfly in Love" series coming later. Secondly, noteworthy was that FENG Zhengjie, refraining from expressing a real look, gave the nude bodies sunglasses colored green, yellow, blue or red. This manner of expression is very interesting, as far as expression of a human look is concerned, in comparison with that in the following "China" and "Chinese Portrait" series. Although the element of "nudity" can also be found in his former paintings, the "nudity" in the "Coolness" series is completely conceptualized. The figures painted here have no hair on their heads, genitals or armpits, reminding us of dolls. Given unusually big heads associated with the very image of robots, they are sexually neutralized. Although they seem to be playing some gestures, the meaning of the gestures is always vague and their faces are dehumanized by the sunglasses that cover the look in their eyes. The naked bodies symbolize the current status of China facing a too-rapid popularization and mass-consumption tendency. Although depicted as female naked bodies, they are nothing but the mind of the Chinese people. In the case of the "Butterfly in Love" series, FENG Zhengjie uses commercial posters in the fashion of the 1930s Shanghai (see illustration 4). In the picture of two girls, he expressed one in a 1930s costume and the other as a naked body, making a clear contrast between the two (see illustration 5). While throwing a critical eye on the current situation of China, he is not generous with the "past", either. The two girls, belonging to different ages in recent Chinese history, are equally "kitsch". They are depicted as a twin and arranged in parallel, side by side on the same level, suggesting the only difference between them lay in the absence/presence of clothes covering the body (China)! However, the naked body wearing a pair of sunglasses in the "Coolness" series seems more interesting to me. FENG Zhengjie must have been then at a loss, in a sense, about how to depict the eye. Accordingly, it may be said that he avoided expressing the look, or that he sexually neutralized the body by avoiding it in the "Coolness" series. It was in the next "China" series, or rather in the "Chinese Portrait" series, that he obtained a really original expression of the look. In these paintings, the white part of an eye, being rather large, is depicted flat with no lights and shades. The iris (pupil) of the eye, on the contrary, is depicted as very small with three tiny spots in it, showing that the eyes neatly receive the light. Furthermore, the irises are depicted at the extremity of the eye (eye socket), suggesting squint-eyes. A female face with the irises located at the extremities can almost be regarded as a trademark of FENG Zhengjie's paintings. We feel, of course, something strange when facing these paintings: we cannot know at all what she is looking at, or what she is thinking. We say in Japanese that "the eyes tell more than the mouth", which means that the expression of the eyes is decisive. The artist first hid the look in the eyes by using sunglasses. Then he found that he could do it, more effectively, by locating the irises at the extremity of the eyes. This is a discovery and a surprise. Moreover, this manner of expression can give us a strange impression as if the girls have no eyes, although their eyes are actually depicted. This does not mean that FENG Zhengjie aimed at neutralization of human sexes in the "China" and "Chinese Portrait" series. Such neutralization had been more perfectly achieved in the "Coolness" series. In contrast, FENG Zhengjie here depicted the outline of the faces, ears, mouths (lips), noses and hair-styles of respective girls differently, purposely suggesting that the models were entirely different and each of them had a unique personality. Only their eyes, although different in the form, were rendered similar. Their focus is oriented neither towards the outside world nor towards their inner selves. They do not seem to be watching anything. Although not being hollow, they are dehumanized. On the other hand, the lips are painted vivid rouge. The color seems even gaudy to some people. If you look at these lips closely, you will find that they are all individual with different shapes and expressions. They are all charming and attractive more or less, apart from the gaudiness of the color. The individual lips make a remarkable contrast with the dehumanized look of the eyes. I cannot look at the paintings without a confused state of mind, or a hallucinated state of perception. It is, however, in this mental and perceptual situation of being at my wits' end that I feel something important. I think that the single-portrait paintings of female faces in the "China" and "Chinese Portrait" series are the most excellent among FENG Zhengjie's works. It seems to me that the core of these works lies in the very contrast that makes me at my wits' end. It is easy and right to find FENG Zhengjie's criticism against current Chinese situations represented by the consumption society and popularization in the dehumanized look in the eyes, gaudy rouge lips, green or red or blue hair, and contemporary fashion. It is exactly the theme of these paintings. However, the purpose of FENG Zhengjie is not a simple and easy criticism. He is very conscious of the fact that he is a member of the same society and enjoying his life there. His criticism is therefore backed up by self-criticism. We have to remember that one of his first paintings was entitled "(Self-)Analysis" (1992). It is this standpoint of self-criticism, which inevitably produces an ambivalent emotion that urges him to realize the portraits. The "China" and "Chinese Portrait" series, as well as his later works, are based on neither simplistic denial nor simplistic affirmation but fundamental affirmation of human-beings, or of the fact that we are living regardless of the social changes. The fundamental affirmation penetrates through his works as a consistent thorough-bass (basso-continuo) and makes them unique and beautiful as artworks. You will hear the thorough-bass when facing the "Chinese Portrait" series at the solo-exhibition of FENG Zhengjie at Suka Art Space, his first solo-exhibition in Korea as well as in Asia (not including China, of course). Painting is an art for depicting something; therefore, the theme is important. However, it is also true that painting is an independent art for producing beauty; paintings can be beautiful regardless of, or apart from, what is depicted there. I dare to say that I have found beauty in the girls depicted by FENG Zhengjie亅the beauty that was externally given by FENG Zhengjie rather than coming from the inside of these girls. The discrepancy between the dehumanized look in the eyes and the sensual lips happened to bring about a vacancy 亅a deep fountain with potential. FENG Zhengjie's paintings will change depending on what he throws into this fountain; we, the audience, will be asked to find it out with our own eyes. Will this fountain dry up and become just a vacant hole? Alternatively, will it be filled with abundant water?丂The answer depends on where modern China is going. As one of the audience, I sincerely hope that the girls in FENG Zhengjie's paintings will be more beautiful by developing their own inner potentiality.

　　Notes 1 Xu Bei-hong, 1895乣1953; Qi Bai-shi, 1863乣1957. 2 "85 Art Movement": In 1985, many avant-garde art movements occurred simultaneously, not knowing each other, in many cities in China. "85 Art Movement" was the first step of the actual contemporary art in China, which was interrupted more or less by the Tiananmen Affair of 1989. 3 These two quotations are from some catalogues of his solo-exhibitions. Illustrations 1 An example of the popular paintings 2 "Romantic Trip No.27", 1999 3 "Coolness No.9", 2001 4 An example of the Shanghai commercial posters of the 1930's 5 "Butterfly in Love No.23", 2003 6 "China No.18", 2001