These odd animals and plants, bizarre faces and bodies, strange mountains and deserts, unusual skies and cities, they are all absorbed into a very unique atmosphere resulted from the interweaving of time and space. But, since time and space are both blurred and without any specific connotation, the resulting effect is quite peculiar and it naturally leads us to think about an abstract notion of time and space impossible to explain in words.
Speaking of the subjects of the works, where do they originate? What kind of experiences have they undergone? Which language do they speak? Which legendary clues have they passed through? Or we can also say, which kind of “behind- the-scenes” secrets are these images trying to reveal?
It's clear that Cang Xin's images are not aimed at answering to the above questions; his images are not narrative at all, and they are not the metaphorical representation of events narrated in legends. So even if the works are indistinct, suffused with all the various elements typical of mythological tales, and moreover they are endowed with an intense fascination for narrative, Cang Xin’s aim is not narrating an antique legend. On the contrary, the secret of these paintings lies in the paintings themselves, in the compositions dominated by black and white, in the distortion and union of the different images in the artworks.
These images, the combination of animals and flowers, the intermingling of people and Nature, the osmosis of people, animals, plants, cities and Nature, all these indissoluble threads connect different kinds of objects. Since all the images are pervaded by a holy light, thus the images themselves act as a device to fabricate illusions. It is exactly the light that gives to the objects in the composition their own specific depth that conveys to the composition a peculiar atmosphere. All the objects, no matter if animals, human bodies, plants, and Nature, affirm their own existence by means of this light, but despite this their existence is not filled with any fixed meaning. However, these material things endowed with volume are not unfamiliar to each other, they relate to each other, binding together, interweaving and permeating each other. In other words, they are linked to each other. The way in which they join is quite extravagant: even if they are brought together by lines, they are not linked according to any intrinsic values.
On one hand, human beings are not animals endowed with spiritual understanding; on the other hand animals are not human beings gifted with wisdom. Animals don't imitate human beings and human beings are not an imitation of animals. The relationship between men and animals is not based on an inner response taking the shape of interaction, men and animals don't represent each other, they are not a metaphor or a symbol of each other. Animals and human beings are not similar at all, and so they don't dream one about the other.
In this way, Cang Xin completely annihilates a great variety of viewpoints such as many “theories of personification” or “theories of objectification”. Even if animals and human beings don't live in two separate worlds, actually there isn’t any mutual understanding and communication between their two realms. Despite this, which kind of relationship takes place between animals and human beings- provided that they are, in some way, related? The relationship between animals and human beings is a physical, but absolutely not a spiritual one. We can see that in Cang Xin's works animals, human bodies, plants, the earth and the sky are not separated by a blank space, on the contrary, they are always linked to each other and among them real lines always appear. These lines succeed in binding them together in an unbreakable way. A human body lies on the earth, plants are born out of his belly and plants’ twigs are suspended over his skull with a mouth biting a small animal, which is touching the twigs, again. All these elements are immersed in an atmosphere resembling the primal chaos. In this scenery, we can recognize an endless succession of “reproductive organs”. The earth generates a human body, the human body gives birth to plants, which generate another human body, giving birth to animals, and finally plants grow out of animals. In this scenery of a never-ending creation of life, everything is involved in an infinite chain of creative activities. The same creative process takes place also among other things: a cow drops a mule, a mule drops a horse, a horse drops a pig which gives birth to a child. Under these circumstances, every time birth occurs, it is always different and also what is born is different. This difference is not a question of rank, since it doesn't have anything to do with it, or with purpose since all the things are placed in a context evolving constantly. Actually, no matter if animals, plants, the earth or human bodies their birth doesn't occur according to a preferential sequence or to an order of importance. Being on the same level, they give birth to each other, in an egalitarian and joyful way. In the course of their life, they don't defend strenuously their own authenticity because every time birth occurs, it represents both the affirmation of the subject’s individuality (such as the skull or the cockroach) and its negation, as well (the skull and the cockroach). It's right during the process of birth that the skull, the cockroach and the tree are all crackling. This different creative process is deeply related to the flowing of time, or in other words, if a skull is relegated to the past in the twinkling of an eye, the present and the future meld together. So we can affirm that time moves on in a perpendicular way, and an instant can defeat eternity. Every object swings in the indefinite flowing of time, being open to developing any kind of latent ability, showing its willingness to create the Other. On this basis, the bodies portrayed in Cang Xin's works are usually a collection of bizarre organs: skulls which become one with a ball; cockroaches hiding in mouths; flowers growing out of plants placed on human bodies; birds standing upside down on tree trunks; four-legged human bodies; insects floating over lotus flowers etc. Cang Xin let the essence of the different things he employs mingle. This union doesn't correspond to a spiritual dialogue between human beings and objects, human beings and beasts, or objects and beasts. The most indistinct element in these works is the symbol of the soul: the eyes. On the contrary, wide opened mouths appear continuously. It's right through the mouth and thanks to its function of letting things in and out that different organisms can penetrate each other, pierce each other, twisting and finally joining. Their union is purely physical, but it is by the means of this union that the fixed borders among different living things are challenged.
At the same time in this confused mixture, we realize that mankind doesn’t occupy a central place anymore. The origin of mankind has a source itself (this has already been confirmed), the death of mankind has an ending itself (we will prove it in future times, since nobody knows in which way mankind will develop). There is no difference between the relationship resulted from the union of human beings and animals and that of animals and plants. Human beings, animals and plants have the same status, the same identity, they are all transitional results of the creative process. Or in other words, in this case we just can face atypical groups impossible to classify: animals don't exist anymore, only the combination of human beings and animals exists, plants don't exist anymore but only their combination with animals, as well as that of plants and human beings, or animals and plants. In this continuous generative process, mankind doesn't play a central role anymore. Animals, plants, human beings, the earth are all carrying on the same cheerful game of creation, of pursuing and of bearing. This is a game, a net of games in which rationality, classification, hierarchy and centralism all collapse. This is a “pre-rational” scenery which finds its place among ancient fantasies, or to use Cang Xin's own words, it is originated by a “childish thought”, a “primeval childlike innocence”. Cang Xin wants to return to this kind of mythology, in which the non fragmentized Whole is captured by illusions. This is a world where all living things are endowed with a soul, a world speaking a non semantic language, and giving out sounds which can be equivocated. Up to now, the languages, sounds and feelings emitted by the unnamed Whole, its illusions and fantasies have all been defeated by rationality. It's because of the supremacy of rationality that animals, plants, human beings and Nature are emitting their own distinct voice, and so they all have their own name, they are writing their own destiny by themselves, while standing on each own place.
But once human beings take the distance from that scenery of a “non fragmentized Whole”, they become the Other in the eyes of Nature, or if put differently, man and Nature, animals, plants all become the Other, the absolute Other. Today, all the effects caused by this process lead man to hold a central authority within the cosmos. We can see that knowledge puts in order myth, and carries on a meticulous analysis of the world. These works by Cang Xin are an attempt to pierce the branches of knowledge interwoven by rationality, in order to return to a mythological world. In this world the relationship among human beings is spontaneous and the one with animals isn’t based upon dominance: human beings are the happy concurrent in the net of the huge game of merging, and are progressing gradually towards animals. Or in other words mankind is just an insect with its own peculiarities. This is also the reason why looking at Cang Xin's works we cannot experience any sort of joy: human beings are just insects, this is our past, but because of the teachings of rationality we have forgotten it. Nietzsche sharply pointed out that the origin of man were monkeys, so human beings can stand anything! Even the Superhuman hasn’t inherited his power from mankind, but from animals, like lions and snakes.
The works of Cang Xin are imbued with a peculiar opposition to the central role played by man in the cosmos, and thus our confidence becomes their target. Moreover, since according to these artworks man and insects are on the same level, they offend the human self-esteem, hurting mankind’s feelings. But, supposing that man blindly immerses himself in the huge mythology built up by his own ego, he won’t be able anymore of introspection. So aren’t the offences and harms against man necessary?