Shang Simin’artworks, in terms of its aesthetic schema, will make people think of "Superflat" features at first glance: color bright, two-dimensional space and flat outline. Fictional cartoon characters and specious anthropomorphic animals make the work less serious. Therefore, from the perspective of shape and structure alone, the comic world constructed by these paintings is something anyone can appreciate and get an interesting experience from.
Contrary to the obvious aesthetic schema, the artist paradoxically implies the pessimistic tone of the main idea of the work in the narrative construction of the painting. "I try to tell the saddest stories with lovely images and attractive colors," says Shang. Most of the themes in his work are oral narratives drawn from friends of the artist. At the same time, the flat anthropomorphic plants and animals in the picture are a metaphorical visual translation of the real world. Although Shang's works tend to take sadness as the background color in terms of materials, the artist does not intend to delve into the excessively serious social motif behind sadness from the very beginning. Instead, his grasp of the narrative is more inclined to the allegorical body that can be seen in a subtle way -- alluding to the existence of the story, implying the tendency of emotion, and then to stop.
The incorporation of literary allegory and puns in painting was common in the art practice of the Netherland school in the 15th and 16th centuries. Representative works include the one hundred Nederlandse Spreekwoorden by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in 1559. In this painting, Brueghel satirizes the stupidity of human beings by using 112 proverbs popular in the Netherlands at that time through the funny portrayal of different characters and events. Shang Simin's painting has a similar practice. In some of his works, such as "Get Up Early in the Mourning" and "An Apple," you can see the composition of some classical paintings, in which the picture is divided into the foreground, middle scene (sometimes the middle scene is abandoned), and perspective. The foreground closest to the viewer is often the interior, with a window connecting the middle and distant views of the outside world. In classical painting, the juxtaposition of the scene before and after often reveals the different inner world of the subject. In "An Apple", the protagonist turns his back to the viewer and holds a round mirror. Through the mirror, we can see the main character's straight face. The main character's gaze is both on the viewer and himself. As the starting point of human self-knowledge, the mirror, as a "mysterious element", penetrates into western paintings. The "description" of the mirror becomes a way for painters to discuss the self-identity. In "An Apple," the protagonist's expression in the mirror is rather plaintive, and the absent candle fire on the dressing table and grape seeds on the plate suggests the protagonist's longing for eternal youth. As the viewer looks out of the window further into the open square, the rooster, by some divine power, is destroying a crumbling monument to the black swan. In the fierce battle, the cock represents the mainstream values of the male perspective, while black swan is an animal world-recognized gay image - the collective criticism out of the window and the room self-pity hints at the picture of the protagonist as a gay heart on the double pressures: the non-acceptance of foreign and internal anxiety of appearance.
In “Get Up Early in the Mourning”, the setting of metaphor is more complicated, and the irony caused by the contradiction of image is more prominent. The work was first modeled on a group of Indian educational posters: paintings that teach correct behavior. In contrast to the extensive upbringing of Latinos and blacks, the intensive upbringing of children in east Asian cultures permeates every aspect of children's daily life. And rigid dogma can fuel the desire for rebellion: "Morning" in "Get up Earlyin the Morning" is altered by the artist to "Mourning"; Nike's winning logo is eaten by children; The rooster, the symbol of early rising, was pretending to be an owl... The elements of the picture are similar to the cognition of reality, but they are not.
Understanding allegory and metaphor has a lot to do with the functioning of the human brain, which means that for people with incomplete brain development or different thinking habits, understanding words or ironic scenes with special emotions is biased, which means that elaboration is involved. In terms of Shang Simin's works, the flat visual form has a delicate aesthetic and humorous style. Can the appreciation stop abruptly at this step? Here, the depth of understanding becomes the active appeal of the viewer: the process of searching makes "super-flat" no longer "flat". From this point of view, the artist has a certain right of final interpretation to the completely superficial and superficial narrative, which diverges the work repeatedly between the two poles of viewing: it is neither completely documentary nor completely absurd. To some extent, this kind of ambiguous attitude is a way of philosophy: For individuals, not everyone can be a hero in the fight against prejudice, dogma, and stereotypes. Ordinary people may have a more eclectic approach -- allegory is a milder form of protest: we don't need a real fight, but we don't tolerate absolute silence either.