Overall, CAO Zaifei’s work seeks out patterns of meaning between “words and things.” The distinct iconographic features of his work can be tied to his formal education. The artist successively matriculated from the Oil Painting Department of Nanjing University of the Arts and the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Nanjing University, and has since focused on exploring the corresponding words and meanings behind objects presented in his images. Mainly, he focuses on everyday objects, but renowned sculptures and paintings from art history also abound. Since the purpose and use of everyday things is so familiar to audiences, the symbolic language associated with these objects is therefore relatively fixed. It is here, where the commonplace meets the cliché, that CAO has chosen to throw down the gauntlet and attempt to break through such clichés associations. In other words, he has anchored his work in constructing images that activate new meanings in everyday objects.

In his work, a globe no longer symbolizes the age of globalization, sickles are no mere agricultural tool, nor are they a symbol of revolution, plastic buckets and containers are not used for storage, instead, they are used as platforms. By depicting unfamiliar amalgamations of objects in his paintings, the artist brings about a semantic shift to the symbolism of ordinary things. As a departure from the norm, CAO’s still life paintings do not focus on objects, so much as how the objects are used. The artist emphasizes hands and feet, and how they relate to the object -- or rather, he focuses on unusual relationships between hands, feet, and everyday things. A pair of shoe-clad feet stand atop plastic buckets and storage containers. A foot steps upon the blade of a sickle. An egg is tossed into the air with the back of a hand. A sickle is held in a backwards grip. Disembodied hands wipe away large sections of a globe with the aid of a rag. Such reconstructed relationships between people and things are how the artist weaves new narrative meaning into his work.

Certainly, surrealism permeates CAO Zaifei’s iconology. A number of his works allude to René Magritte in composition and form, and from this basis, CAO’s own artistic characteristics are revealed. On another level, this mode of expression can also be tied to current cultural contexts. As a relatively safe zone of speech, daily life has become a resource for metaphorical expression, which artists draw upon to express what may not be said, and speak about subjects which are usually avoided in speech. This is particularly evident in CAO Zaifei’s work. One finds ridicule and satire in his work, so much so that they seem to form pictographic jests -- paintings that possess a certain surface-level folksiness, which obscure depths of labyrinthine implication.

At the same time, when contrasted with an increasingly political contemporary artistic discourse, CAO’s paintings present a different aspect -- one of ridicule, rather than critique. The artist does not strike out directly, instead he approaches his subject through humor. As many postmodernists believe -- irony may be the only avenue towards the serious in contemporary society. So we are left with irony, which we use to rethink past clichés in order to discuss the significance of the now. The same is true of CAO Zaifei’s artistic stance. The everyday objects he depicts are often plain and simple, even intentionally rustic in appearance. Then, just after the viewer smiles a knowing smile, the painting’s significance rises beyond the everyday, into that domain of the specific.

总体而言，曹再飞的艺术创作追求着“词与物”的意义模式。这种显著的图像学特征，或许与他的求学经历有关——曾先后毕业于南京艺术学院油画系与南京大学哲学宗教学系的曹再飞，专注于在图像呈现之物的背后探寻对应的语词与意义。在他的绘画中，聚焦的物象大多来自日常事物，也不乏艺术史上的知名雕塑与绘画。众所周知，在日常生活中，由于普通器物的用途总是过于熟悉，因此它的象征语义也相对较为固定。那些司空见惯的事物，老生常谈的象征，正是曹再飞尝试着在图像上突围的爆破点——他的创作锚定在如何通过画面的构建来重新激活这些寻常物的含义。

在他的绘画中，地球仪不再指向大航海时代以来的全球化，镰刀也不再是单纯的农具或是革命符号，塑料桶和收纳箱的容器功能被让位于垫脚的作用。这种寻常物的象征语义流变，完全拜图像之间陌生化的组合关系所赐。有别于一般的静物画，曹再飞描绘的对象更像是物如何被使用。手或脚，它们与物的关系——或者更准确地说，非统寻常的关系——才是画面的重点。双脚站在塑料桶和收纳箱上，踩在镰刀的刀刃上；利用手背抛起鸡蛋，用手反握着镰刀，以及用手持抹布不可思议的抹除地球仪上的图形……这些经由艺术家重新调配的人与物的关系，编织着崭新的叙事意味。

无疑，曹再飞的图像学弥漫着浓厚的超现实主义风味。甚至，不少作品在构图与形态上，都流淌着勒内·马格利特的基因，并且在此基础上生长出属于曹再飞自己的艺术面貌。在另一个层面上，这种图像表达的方式，或许也与当下文化语境不无关联。日常生活作为言说的安全区域受到青睐，反而成为隐喻式表达的素材库，以此实现言说不可言说之物和避开言说对象的言说。这一点在曹再飞的创作中尤为明显。他的作品具有戏谑、讽喻乃至是图像段子的风格，既在表面直白地显示着某种民间趣味，又在深层暗藏着曲折的言外之意。

与此同时，相比于政治性逐渐浓厚的当代艺术实践，曹再飞的图像言说彰显着不同的面貌——与其说是批判，毋宁说是调侃；并非严肃地直击，而是幽默地消解。就像绝大多数后现代主义者所认定的那样：反讽也许是当代人走向严肃的唯一途径，而我们也只能以反讽的方式重新思考过去的陈词滥调，并且言说当下的意义。曹再飞的艺术立场也是如此。他所描绘的日常事物，往往简单质朴，甚至故作稚拙；然而，就在观众看了会心一笑之后，图像的意义就飞抵日常性之外的那个特定领域了。