When the mind rests, perhaps the most authentic creation has only just begun. It holds the emotions we leave unspoken, and serves as a private sanctuary to escape reality. Graduates of the Central Academy of Fine Arts seize this spark of inspiration,
turning dreams, illusions and dream weavers into a shared artistic spectacle. Today, we invite you to step into this fantasy realm frozen in art.
1\ Let go of worldly trivialities, wander freely with heaven and earth
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Work Name: Many Lonely Dreams in a Life Displaced Southward — Li Qingzhao
Artist: Zhang Siyuan
Size: 54×74cm
Medium: Oil on Canvas
During the Jingkang Crisis of the Northern Song Dynasty, people of the Song fled south, and Li Qingzhao wandered into the southern lands. Did Li Qingzhao pass by the lotus pond where she once played in her youth during her southern exile? With scenes remaining the same yet people changed, what state of mind lingered within her in those days? The lotuses in the pond withered in an instant. The dying sun filtered through the withered lotus stalks and fell upon the poet’s shoulders. Wild geese flying south always return north one day. The lotus seeds held in the poet’s hand symbolize hope. As long as the flame of civilization endures, even amid devastation, flowers will bloom again tomorrow.
Work Title: A Dream Wander at Red Cliff
Artist: Zhang Siyuan
Size: 215×120cm
Medium: Oil on Canvas
On the night of the fifteenth day of the tenth lunar month in the fifth year of the Yuanfeng reign, Su Shi obtained a large fish with a broad mouth and slender scales, resembling the perch of Songjiang, along with a jar of wine. He then took the wine and the fish and revisited Red Cliff with two friends. Red Cliff rose rugged and jagged, its steep cliffs soaring a thousand feet high. Su Shi braved the perilous path to climb to the summit, while his two friends could not reach such a lofty height. Su Shi let out a long, resounding roar, stirring the plants and trees. The mountains echoed and the valleys responded; the wind rose and the river surged. A sense of sorrow and awe came over Su Shi. Feeling he could not linger there long, he descended the hill, boarded his boat, and let it drift freely on the river. Near midnight, a crane with wings as large as cart wheels let out a sharp, prolonged cry and glided past the boat toward the west. When the excursion ended and his friends departed, Su Shi returned home and fell asleep. He dreamed of a Taoist priest clad in feathered robes, who greeted him with folded hands and asked: “Did you enjoy your tour of Red Cliff?” Su Shi asked for his name, yet the priest bowed his head in silence. In a sudden epiphany, Su Shi wondered: could this be the lone crane that had swept past his boat the night before? He awoke with a start. Opening the door to search, there was no trace of anyone to be found… Inspired by the scene of Su Shi drifting on the river and encountering a crane in Ode to the Second Red Cliff, this work seeks to craft a realm of vast, ethereal lucidity, hovering between reality and illusion. We are fleeting mayflies drifting between heaven and earth, a single grain adrift in the vast sea. At this moment, Su Dongpo cast aside worldly trivialities, became one with heaven, earth, sun and moon, and wandered in unbounded spiritual freedom.
2\Unfettered by circumstance, unattached to mortal cares
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Work Title: Abiding Nowhere
Artist: Wang Zhenzhen
Size: 160cm × 200cm
Medium: Tempera sprayed on wood panel
Abiding Nowhere draws its inspiration from the Diamond Sutra’s verse "Dwell on nothing, and let your mind arise freely". It integrates tempera and airbrush techniques to blend oriental landscape with surrealism. Centered on the metaphor of a draw in Mongolian chess, the painting features a chessboard shrouded in sea of clouds and two faceless figures, constructing a spiritual game of self-bargaining. Facing the fierce tiger in the bamboo grove means confronting inner desires; gazing at the chessboard amid cloud sea embodies the yearning for transcendence. The work conveys the Zen essence of being unbound by gain and loss, and unattached to outcomes, guiding viewers to attain inner ease and balance through reconciliation.
3\Radiant Vision: The Faint Light Deep in Memories
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Work Title: Deer Wandering in Lush Grass
Painting Size: 45×45 cm
Work Title: Phoenix, O Phoenix
Painting Size: 63×23 cm
Work Title: Traces of the Unicorn
Painting Size: 63×45 cm
Work Title: Bright Moon and Snowy Hour
Painting Size: 35×50 cm
Artist: Song Ximeng
Medium: Screen print, Mixed media
The conception of the painting series Radiant Visions began during a period stretched long by anxiety. Graduation arrangements and uncertainties about the future closed in relentlessly. Nights stretched long with wakefulness, and thoughts lingered in endless loops, rendering the artist’s inner world distant and indifferent. Her graduation thesis focuses on Zhangzhou woodblock New Year paintings. During this period, she immersed herself in the cultural customs of Zhangzhou, Fujian, including local architectural features, costume styles, dietary habits, religious beliefs, and more. Between the lines of documents and records, she sensed the region’s emotionally rich festive atmosphere. As she gazed upon those New Year paintings, distant memories resurfaced: the steam rising from home-cooked meals, the crackle of firecrackers, and the glow of fireworks blooming across the night sky. She saw her family smiling at her younger self, and her late grandparents; back then, her parents had not yet grown grey hair. These countless warm, vivid fragments softened the edges of time, nurturing a quiet sense of peace amid worldly bustle. It was as if the people from those long-gone days had travelled across time to the present, soothing her inner anxiety and the unease of stepping into the complexities of adult reality.
4\After the Giant Rock Fades Away
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Work Title: Are You Also Sisyphus?
Artist: Li Siqi
Size: 196×198 cm
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Drawing on the archetype of the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, this work explores the existential state of modern people.
In the painting, the traditional boulder is replaced by a huge, light and gentle transparent sphere, a metaphor for the seemingly reasonable and smooth work, order and technology in modern life. The figure on the right is no longer a hero resisting fate, but possesses a transparent, faceted form. He maintains the sphere’s motion through touching and complying — pushing forward while being swept along. The work poses a profound question: Having clearly realized that life is an unsolvable cycle, we still choose to keep going. For this meaningless repetition without end, do we act out of conscious choice, or mere habit?
As Camus put it, true happiness may lie precisely in choosing to endure with full awareness.
5\Medium Beyond Language: Water
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Work Title: Migration
Artist: Chen Weiyi
Dimensions: 6×100×150 cm
Medium: Acrylic, Pastel and Colored Pencil on Canvas
Taking water as the medium, the work captures primal perceptions that have not yet been verbalized by language. It allows imagery to continuously emerge at the critical threshold between manifestation and dissolution, dwelling in the diffused realm of consciousness, subconsciousness, psychology and physical sensation. Through the metaphor of the "water mirror", it mirrors inner psychological space, where reality, dreams, memories and imagination coexist as one. In this process, the interplay of the body, tactile sense, rhythm and multiple senses takes precedence over the definition of form. Painting thus becomes a tangible field of experience, forming an interpenetrating and symbiotic bond with the surrounding environment.
6\Surreal Fantasy of Iris
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Chief Editor / He Yisha
Responsible Editor / Du Yinzhu
Editor / Zhang Ni
Photographer / Sun Xiaomeng
