Secretions from Glass* —For Xiao Xiaofang* 1 Deep sea water strangled by water Heads eyelids long coral reefs Darkness is the conductor light and dark shut into spliced panels We depart from our bodies immersed in water Glass thin grey-white ice drifts overhead 2 Children caused to perish are all alive under the water Disfigured noses filled with inky green Breathe while growing flesh crying out about the cold Within the lungs is a viscous and only time How often tiny bullhead sharks begin tearing at the womb One lamp face is internal organ lighting up countless edges Two lamps sucking translucent fishy nipples Three lamps the purple of space saw teeth analysing the purple In single file we enter a crack The only crack undersea studio with no walls Phosphorous-laden reef lacks the solitude for displays of anger Our creation is enamoured of deathly loneliness Feels the sea’s hardened outline gently parting bone marrow Soft light reading a book dedicated to the day of birth 3 Beethoven used a deaf ear to run away with history His head buried in a sunken boat Shook a vertical square metre of glass air Bubbles dragged by invisible threads of blood Diamond-studded imagination openwork carving Fragile waist a foot fiercely stamping the emptiness Wildly howling organ wildly charges into another organ Periscopic eye behind the eye Periscopic struggle within the struggle Linking with drifting musical notes A white coral with an empty palm Lightly pushes us into a metaphor
玻璃之沁 （赠夏小万） 1 深海 水被水呛死 头颅 眼睑低垂的珊瑚礁 幽暗是导体 光幽闭在自己的切片里 我们离开我们的躯体潜泳 玻璃 灰白的冰碴在头顶浮动 2 被毁灭的孩子们都活在水下 残破的鼻孔 倒灌着墨绿色 仍在发育的呼吸 呼叫寒冷的血肉 肺里一个粘稠的仅有的时代 第几次 小小的虎鲨从子宫中已开始撕咬 一盏灯 脸是内脏 亮起无数边缘 两盏灯 吸啊 半透明的鱼腥味儿的奶 三盏灯 空间的紫色 锯齿解析着紫色 我们鱼贯而入一道裂缝 仅仅一道 海底工作室没有墙 吮含磷光的礁石 甚至没有孤独去恼怒 我们的造型是爱上这死寂 感觉大海的硬化的框子 细细掰开骨髓 慢的光源 翻阅一本赠给生日的书 3 贝多芬用一只聋耳挣脱历史 他的头埋进沉船里 震动 一立方米的玻璃空气 看不见的血丝牵着气泡 镶了钻石的想象 透雕 脆的腰身 一只猛蹬虚空的脚 狂吠的器官狂奔进别的器官 潜望的目光在目光后面 潜望的挣扎在挣扎里面 接住还在飘落的乐谱 一架掌心空空的白珊瑚 把我们轻轻搡进隐喻
*Xia Xiaowan 夏小万 (b. 1959, Beijing) graduated in 1982 from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Since then he has exhibited widely in China, and over the past decade also in Switzerland, Germany, USA, Austria and Korea. His art challenges conventional notions of painting as representing only how one normally sees things. He paints human figures viewed from the feet up, and immersed in water also from that vantage point. He admits to Goya’s influence in the distorted figures that he depicts. His most recent works are installations on thin layers of glass hung vertically one behind the other, each layer bearing a painted image. The layered images together constitute a series of different images depending on the angle of viewing.
