Oil Painting: “WHY?”

Oil Painting “WHY?” by Weixing Wang (26in x 20in.), 2004

Painters comment:

I didn’t give much thought to the painting. I met a friend of mine one day, who also practises Falun Gong, and she told me her story. She and her son were imprisoned in jail like this simply for practising Falun Gong. After listening to her story, I started painting without giving it much thought because it was a true story. I was not used to painting children who were dirty, ragged, and beaten, so I was scared to paint something like that. The boy I started out painting was clean and had flawless complexion. I did paint the clothes to look dirty but it still didn’t look right because this was in jail and they had beaten him and his mother. I later tried adding some effects to the eye to show ruptured eye vessels because eyes bleed after being beaten. The mother came and told me that I needed to add some tears, not rolling down the face, but have some tears. I didn’t have a model so she showed me what she meant. Later when the tear was painted on, I realised that with the eyes so bright, the tear was not obvious. After adding [the effect of the ruptured vessels], the white of the eye became darker and the small amount of tears became clearer. The tear did not roll down the face because boys are not like girls or he could have cried and cried himself dry. His expression is not that simple. He keeps asking, “Why? Why?” He doesn’t understand why mother is imprisoned, why mother is beaten, why he is beaten, why they have to be imprisoned and are not allowed to get out. He stands there with his feet over here and his hands over there, looking like he wants to get out but can’t.