Surge  is one of the representative works of Xu Zhongou’s series In the Name of  Walnut. Through a highly distilled visual language, it responds to the jolting  “tide of going overseas to do business” that swept across China during the  early years of its reform and opening up. The artist uses the walnut to  symbolize the confluence of individual life and the spirit of the times,  transforming historical experience into the textural structure of inner  spirituality.