「Look at the Picture and Talk about the Painting」Ouyang Wendong’s perceptual practice

When spices become the medium of art, the exhibition “A Backward Glance at SOLARIS” by Ouyang Wendong constructs an olfactory extension of Jean-Luc Nancy’s “body sensation” theory. Instead of merely gazing at static exhibits, the audience becomes co-creators of the space through their breathing. When the fragmented memories triggered by the sense of smell resonate with the matrix of fragrant pills captured by vision, the severed senses are re-sewn together. The artist, like an ancient artisan blending spices, and the audience, who reconstruct the space through the smell, form a mirror image of each other, jointly resisting the one-sided disintegration of sensory experiences in modern society.

The core of the exhibition’s Zen essence lies in the paradox of “visible yet ungraspable”: the incense balls represent the visible “existence”, while the fragrance represents the fleeting “non-existence”; the work itself represents the definite “presence”, and this fragrance further concretizes the Eastern philosophy of the circulation of all things in the act of breathing. The “materiality” of the work dissolves with the disappearance of the fragrance, leaving only the spiritual residue at the perception level. When the audience realizes in the olfactory labyrinth that “the ungraspable fragrance is eternal”, Ouyang Wendong has successfully translated the “empty contemplation”. The true essence of art does not lie in the preservation of the creation, but in the breathing that penetrates the philosophy of time like spices. It makes existence no longer a static image, but a flowing experience of coexistence with memory, space and spirit in each inhalation and exhalation.

This exhibition ultimately becomes a perceptual practice of “de-materialization”, and what the audience walks into through the fragrance is not only the art space, but also the contemplation of “what is existence”.

The tea for today is all gone. Next time, I’ll brew a fresh pot and enjoy art with you again.