Art is One Person's war, and one person of war is lonely!
"My mind has been bad, or bad enough, I always tried to avoid them. My mind is always thinking about ethnic problems, ah! I'm going crazy. nothing can make me feel comforted, why don't I always forgive myself? I was supposed to find relief in the art, but I fell into them. Cannibalistic ...... a big mouth is swallowing your youth, your time, your life, devouring your life of rebirth, I want to smash its teeth, but I could not find a hammer or something heavy. To overcome ignorance is not a very easy thing, in order to fight, I must be indomitable, the stupid city, when could I see it under the light of brilliant culture?" This is part of a letter which Zhao Dewei wrote to a friend in 1987, what I read is the scream from his heart.
In January 1988, as the chairman of Qingdao Young Artists Association, Zhao Dewei Started the "Rain or Shine - Sunday Open-air Art Action" of Four-year, which included Performance, Events, Contemporary Paintings, whether winter or summer, wind or rain, he always used a broken dray pulling his new oil paintings to show under the spire of the Catholic Church, until 1990 this action was stopped, the Sunday open-air exhibitions has been lasted for 75 times, later the Church Square won a reputation "Artist Square".
Zhao Dewei groped constantly for a unique creative language, if we say his 1980s works was influenced by Berlocq, but he finally got rebirth in 2006, from then on, there's no more early minimalism in new works, but concerned the most ordinary people's living conditions: from the pedestrian street to breakfast shop, or the crowds and the cars of congestion, he used his unique technique telling the noisy era.
