The Train of Madness

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“The Train of Madness” is a symbolic vehicle whose passengers assume various guises/identities to adapt to an ever-changing world, clinging on to the train as if it were Noah’s Ark – an Ark that will take them safe and sound to an unknown future – but who have nevertheless been forced to board the train, as though they are being sent to con-centration camps. Its passengers try to revive a fossil who will never be able to regain its feet, and they have lost all sense of direction because they have constantly been changing their identities and all their efforts have come to naught. Their dreams can never come true, and even if they were to come true, their future will never be as beautiful as their dreams. Cut off from reality and entrapped in a fantasy world, these people are unaware of the situation they are in - they can’t even see that the toy-like train they have boarded is not going anywhere.
 

With the funny costumes they have assumed, the impossible load they are carrying on their backs, and the imaginary train they have boarded, these people have dissociated themselves from society; yet even though they have lost all contact with reason, they still have a functioning social order, and they strike the viewer as a stable and invincible community. The portraits which they carry may be indicative of where they are coming from, or what they will transform into in the future. The sheer bulk of the picture is directly proportionate to the luridness of the situation. 
 

Scattered with contemporary symbols, this work is dominated by tragedy, so as to evoke in the beholder the striking effect of the radical transformations of the world as seen on societies and individuals. It also aspires to remind us that those who can get through this global disorder without losing their minds, will have the power to shape our civilizations’ future. And the irony secreted within this dream underlines hope, not pessimism.