Distance 31
Meng Huang
孟煌
Production date
2013
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
180 x 280 cm
Notes
There is something both exciting and also melancholy about trains and train journeys. In Meng Huang’s unpeopled landscapes train tracks receding into the distance symbolise ideas of journeying, of crossing borders, of the train as a liminal zone between one place and another. When the artist was interviewed in Beijing in 2006 he spoke about the continuing impact of his early experiences of restless travel when he was a young artist: ‘If life seemed dull or slow paced, I’d simply hop on a train and go traveling to the northwest region of China. I enjoyed standing between the carriages, peering outside at the changing landscape. In the northwest there aren’t many people, so I could really just stand there and soak it all up. I remember at one point passing through the Gobi Desert and seeing a factory chimney way off in the distance. For some reason that scene really struck me and at that moment I knew what I wanted to express in my works.’ In this work, the deserted snow-covered landscape that is lit only, it seems, by the sodium flare of lamps and signals exudes a bleak loneliness, emphasised by the monochrome greys of Meng’s palette.
Accession number
2015.528