Welcome to your worst nightmare

State of Severance (斷境) may be an appropriate subtitle, literally, for Lin Ju's (林鉅) current retrospective at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM). What fills the 29 paintings on show in The House of Wuchi III: State of Severance (無忌宮三:斷境) are severed human bodies: eyeballs hanging from tree branches, guts flowing from cut-open bellies, and the walking-dead carrying their own severed heads among other depictions of incomplete or mis-assembled human forms.

The X-rated exhibition has endless gore, but perhaps the plethora of disembodied limbs and organs comes naturally to the imagination of Lin, a butcher's son.

Lin adopted the name The House of Wuchi three years ago as his alternate personality in painting so that he could see his inner self from another person's point of view. This inner self, according to Lin, is what has inspired all his works.

In 1985, when Lin held his first solo exhibition, Closed View (閉觀), he built a glass house in the middle of the gallery, where he painted for 90 days in a row. That experience turned him into a serious artist and severed his works from the outside world ever since.

"Before Closed View, I used to try to know as much as I could about the outside world, hoping it would inspire me. However, at the end of the stay, I realized that the outside world doesn't matter. I only have to turn to myself for inspiration. I had proved myself a real artist. My creative energy comes from within," Lin said in an interview with the Taipei Times.

The exhibits, spanning Lin's 17-year career as a painter, mostly show incredible dreamscapes with few references to reality.

Creating an apocalyptic atmosphere with mixes of humans and monsters that remind one of Hieronymus Bosch's works, Mountain Imp Devouring Flesh (山癭噬肉圖) shows a glaring infant hanging like a bat from a tree branch with the foot of an adult in its mouth. The infant's private parts are made up of a pulp-like growth with a screaming human face. A shrieking bird is swooping down upon the foot and a purple monster seems to be delighted at being on fire. An actual building in Taipei that appears in background adds to the creepiness of the whole picture.

And this is one of the least unsettling works!

Although most of the works hint at strong religious influence with titles like Holy family (聖家族), Bathing Bodhisattva (臨流獨坐洗觀音), Bodhisattva of the Netherworld (食母地藏圖) and so on, in which the familiar religious figures express libido and blood lust, Lin prefers not to see his works in a religious light. An avid reader of religious scriptures from many creeds, Lin said that his titles were taken from random items that came into his mind, with no intention to convey any particular religious message.

"If there are any religious thoughts involved in my work, it's probably Zen Buddhism," Lin said. Explaining that as Zen defies language and discussion, he has put the inarticulable sentiments onto canvas for viewers to feel without having to analyze what they see.

To mark his first exhibition at TFAM, Lin decided to revive the life-altering experience 17 years ago by building a black-walled studio in the middle of the gallery, where he is going to spend his daytimes for 30 days, while having his head covered and locked during nighttime. The works made during the 30 days will be displayed from May 7 to May 19.