Anxiety

When people are in a state of anxiety, they may perform some unconscious repetitive actions, such as tearing paper strips and scratching their heads. Since childhood, the artist has developed a stereotyped behavior of scratching the wall skin beside the bed with his nails before going to bed. The uneven and scattered marks on the wall are a reflection of the artist’s long-term mental state.

In this exhibition, Song long uses her nails to destructively carve out beautiful lace patterns on the “wall”. It comes from the common decorative fabric in homes. Historically, lace has also been the crystallization of women’s handicrafts. Under the eternal paradox that “family is both a harbor and a cage”, Song long transformed the resulting contradiction and sense of disconnection into a kind of almost ritualistic physical behavior. Over a long period of time, the fingertips repeatedly touched and peeled off the cold and hard wall, and in the brutal replication of traditional female skills, a silent self-discipline was formed on the scars. It points to the imperceptible hidden violence in the undercurrents of a peaceful life,  revealing the suppression and anxiety beneath the warm facade.