Some things are happening, yet have not quite become meaning.
The works presented in Weightless Season resemble the subtle signs that appear between seasonal shifts—changes that are difficult to name precisely. Certain traces suggest plants, rain, checkerboards, footprints, or question marks, yet none fully becomes the protagonist of a narrative.
Only a little rain falls; the season of pumpkin blossoms arrives. An umbrella is used to settle a debt whose origin is no longer quite clear. A question mark might really be an unresolved question, or perhaps simply the drowsiness of an afternoon. These things do not quite amount to events. Before any order is uncovered, they briefly bring unrelated things into proximity.
Wei-Wei’s paintings begin with these minor displacements. She collects encounters, without trying to make them justify anything. Phrases, memories, objects, and indistinct images enter the paintings, gradually losing their original references through the process of making. By varying the proportions of water, pigment powder, and different mediums, she allows differences in absorption and drying time to produce unexpected results. In the process, she is drawn to those moments when meaning has not yet been fixed—much like the barely perceptible signs that appear between one season and another.
The diptych on the right side of the gallery, In the Manner of March, takes its title from a dessert encountered during a spring outing. Nearly four distinct areas are placed side by side, each suggesting a different climate: hawthorn red, perilla purple, willow green, and traces of pale green and white intersect across the surface. Fine white lines resemble rain, or scratches left by gestures, while the wavering lines recall eyes hidden among the grass.
The image of rain continues into A little bit of rain, though the rain never truly falls. Persimmon orange is covered by large fields of grey-white and scattered specks. Several question marks linger within them, their bean-sized punctuation resembling uncertain, wandering eyes. A question mark does not necessarily point to a problem waiting to be answered; it may simply be a brief pause.
In An umbrella made with heart to settle the debt, blocks of orange, charcoal grey, camellia green, wine red, and rice white form an almost chessboard-like order, resembling a calculation that cannot be deciphered. Yet the title pulls this formally rigorous surface toward another kind of exchange—one that feels almost absurd and strangely private: an umbrella made with care, used to settle a debt that cannot quite be explained.
In In a woman's handbag, a small ink-black crow seems to say: summer is cruel and motionless. Around three in the afternoon, the sun falls directly onto the street; the wind does not move, and everything grows quiet. The heat is not only physical. The heart, too, feels as though it were walking alone through a desert. Hot and restless, people wake from humid dreams and use conflict as a language.
In Serpent in the Sands, ochre and golden-yellow bricks emerge from powder and gel as they gradually dry, recalling the image of a gold-mining game. If the eye remains on the painting a little longer, a line becomes a serpent, then the outline of a simply drawn face. Images keep approaching something recognizable, only to leave before they can fully be named. In Oolong, the viewer is invited to come a little closer, to meet the gaze of commas in a tea stain, while powdery grains circled in pencil make a meaningless joke.
On the eve of the Beginning of Autumn, the season is already preparing to turn, yet summer remains in the senses like the lingering aftertaste of spice. The season for pumpkin blossoms and A Large black butterfly from Skopelos describe such a moment.
In Weightless Season, before meaning arrives, we first come to sense the time we are in.