Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly

This work is inspired by the ancient parable “Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly” from the Zhuangzi’s “Discussion on Making All Things Equal,” alongside the image of Adam and God’s fingers nearly touching in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Between these two moments hangs a shared suspension: at the point of touch, is it real or illusory? Is it the self, or something other than the self? Yet the true intention of this work does not rest in the philosophical debate between reality and illusion. It turns inward—toward something more intimate: a practice of self-healing. In traditional Chinese landscape painting, peaks vanish into cloud, streams dissolve into emptiness, and the realm of immortals remains perpetually out of reach. Those unpainted spaces, those mists, are not mere depictions of nature. They are projections of the painter’s inner world. To view a landscape has never been to stand apart from it. The landscape is a mirror: the rising and falling of the mountains you see are the rising and falling within yourself; the clear, still water you see is a moment of your own quietude. For me, traditional culture is precisely this path. It is not a search outward for some distant fairyland; it is a return to observing one’s own inner landscape through the act of beholding nature. We use our eyes to look at the mountains and waters of this world. We should learn, with the same focus and the same gentleness, to look at the inner terrain within ourselves—its contours, its empty spaces. The healing power of landscape does not lie in its beauty. It lies in what happens when you truly look: the boundary between you and what you see begins to dissolve, and you are no longer a separate watcher. You become part of a flowing whole. In that moment, the question of what is real quietly recedes. What remains is the quiet peace of being held, of being seen. This is what the work offers: an invitation to look inward. When you gaze upon the landscape, the landscape also gazes upon you. And when Zhuang Zhou’s finger touches the wing of the butterfly, in that touch, he touches himself. 这件作品的灵感，源自《庄子·齐物论》中“庄周梦蝶”的古老寓言，以及米开朗基罗《创世纪》中亚当与上帝手指即将触碰的那个画面——两者之间，存在着一个共同的悬停：触碰的刹那，是真实还是虚幻？是我，还是非我？ 然而，这件作品真正想做的，并非停驻于虚实的哲学之辨。它向内转——转向一种更为深切的自我疗愈。 在中国传统山水画中，山峰隐于云雾，流水没入虚空，仙界缥缈，不可抵达。那些留白、那些烟岚，并非对自然的单纯描摹，而是画者内心世界的投射。观山水，从来不是旁观。山水是一面镜子，你看见的层峦叠嶂，是你内心的起伏；你看见的澄明水面，是你片刻的宁静。传统文化对我而言，正是这样一条路径：它不是向外寻一个遥远的仙境，而是经由观看自然，回到观照自己的内在世界。 我们用眼睛看这世界的山水，也应当以同样的专注与温柔，去察觉、去观照自己内心的起伏与留白。山水的疗愈，不在于它们的美，而在于当你真正去看的时候，你与它们之间那道界限的消融——你不再是一个孤立的观看者，你是这流动整体的一部分。那一刻，虚幻与真实的追问悄然退场，取而代之的，是一种被接住的、被看见的安然。 这就是这件作品想要给出的：一次向内观看的邀请。当你注视山水，山水也在注视你。当庄周的手指点触到蝴蝶的翅膀，那一刻，触碰的是自己。