Mocube is honoured to present Cai Longfei’s latest exhibition Surface. The exhibition will run until the 25th of December 2022.

Assemble the stretcher bars, stretch the canvas, and carefully check every fine line of the inner frame to be sure. Sand with sandpaper gently and repeatedly and brush with PVA glue to protect it. Flip to the front of the canvas, the artist begins to make grids proportionally according to the depicted image. Before Cai Longfei starts painting, all these complicated, tedious and meaningless actions are to prepare a surface that he presets.

The subject of the image starts from such a surface. Therefore, Cai Longfei does a lot of work before painting: modification, deformation, enlargement, reduction, etc. After a series of actions, the image from reality begins to transform its language, forming a self-enclosed image world. In this image kingdom that alienates the real world, the inherent meaning of the concretely depicted images in the actual existence is completely dissolved, and the hidden content begins to radiate a strong universality and becomes the persona of meaning.

At this moment, the well-known imagery carrier appears in a hollow form, and the viewers need to re-acquire the surface information of the image using their own visual experience. For example, in the two series Motion and Model, instead of representing the object, Cai intends to depict the subtle change when the object becomes the surface of the image. The method of taking out of context attempts to suppress semiotics as the source of perception or the object of artistic knowledge, and effectively inhibit the symbolic content from appearing in the established memory or imagination of the viewers. Looking at the dark opaque colour closely, the models we see in daily life and the postures derived from expressive language push the concept of representation into a tense and dramatic relationship. Stepping back is the reality of the symbolic world. Moving forward is a rich image language. The image fragments depicted by Cai Longfei seem to be walking alone, completely suspended in a visual situation.

Therefore, Cai Longfei's painting work is more like a long-term project. Through painting, tampering and repositioning things, formatting consciousness penetration (Acies Mentis), becomes a constructive act revealing the subject. This action is not a delusional behaviour that hides the actual phenomenon under the surface but emphasizes the practicality of painting. As Cai Longfei claims," The greater meaning of painting today is to shape or change the way of cognition of the painter. Through the action of naked eye and hand representing the world in image inefficiently, in which painting is a way of restoration and a spontaneous experience." The surface is often the part that we neglect whereas it is fertile ground for meaning.

Text by Yang Xi