Mother’s Return
In 1980, Zhao Wenliang’s mother, then nearly ninety, underwent amputation due to a thrombosis and was subsequently confined to her bed. For the next six years, Zhao bore almost the entire responsibility of caring for her alone. Daily routines like feeding her, turning her over, bathing her, administering medication, filled his life and greatly reduced his contact with the outside world. Yet in the intervals between caring for his mother, he persisted in painting. Among the more than forty works created during this period, over twenty directly depict his mother, including pen sketches and oil portraits. She lies in bed, hair disheveled, face gaunt, suffering from illness. Those brief, urgent brushstrokes and bitter, somber images record not only a likeness but also a long and arduous life.
During this phase, painting and life became almost completely intertwined. For Zhao Wenliang, painting was no longer merely creation; it became a way of understanding life, of bearing reality. These works about his mother are therefore especially moving. They contain no grand narratives but instead record time, aging, and familial affection with profound authenticity. The theme of “mother” in Zhao’s oeuvre spanned nearly fifty years, from 1967 to 2015. Beyond his deep feelings for his actual mother, it also contained implicit references to shifts in the social environment. In 1967, Zhao painted the first work titled Mother’s Return, an image that contains no figure of the mother, seemingly suggesting the degradation of humanity amidst catastrophe. When he revisited the painting in 1976, he added an image of the mother returning on a moonlit night, symbolizing the return of humanity. He returned to this subject repeatedly thereafter, expressing his deep attachment to his mother and his eternal remembrance of her.