Yan Wei 

Things That Cry is an ongoing painting project that originates from a release of emotions shaped by social discipline and suppression, as well as an inextricable connection to family history.

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As the work develops, fragments of events and memories begin to surface—both personal and collective—gradually forming a more complex emotional and narrative system. Within this, I explore the tension between the individual, the collective, and larger structural forces: forms of invisible control, systemic pressure, and the ways in which the individual is diminished or overlooked.

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The project is also rooted in my experience of growing up in an industrial city, where traces of nature and human intervention exist in constant conflict. A vast, harsh landscape and the relentless presence of machinery shaped my earliest perceptions—where life and death coexist, and order and disorder intertwine.

These experiences converge into an evolving emotional field that continues to unfold and reconfigure within the work.