"Loneliness and Blur" Series 2020-Present

I have been greatly influenced by the French artist Bill Viola, whose works often have a spiritual dimension, incorporating elements of Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism, underpinning universal themes: life, death, love, sex, sorrow, and redemption. Viola regarded "perceptual phenomena" as a path to self-awareness. Thus, his works blend experimental video art and sound. For Viola, the camera was like an "existential microscope," capturing milestones and details, all fixed in time without gaps due to sleep, memory loss, or altered consciousness. Through video, time can be slowed down, otherwise unstoppable, and fast-forwarded. His use of extreme slow motion responded to our anxiety about the ultimate death of things we usually can't see or experience, giving experience a visual form. Viola was determined to "prove things like a scientist" and viewed the creative process of video art as a "controlled experiment," using the camera to record carefully crafted images and narratives. However, with technological advancements, he realized his approach should be the opposite: adapting to new possibilities of media technology, capturing life experiences in the moment rather than planning them. My work is entirely influenced by his concepts, showcasing these processes on a flat surface.

I also frequently visit the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see the original works of the German artist Anselm Kiefer. He uses a variety of materials like oil paint, steel, lead, ash, photosensitive emulsion, stone, photographs, woodcuts, straw, and asphalt. The large and complex textures of his paintings exude power, providing me with a profound visual impact. Moreover, Kiefer's paintings combine abstraction with figurative elements, hallucination with materiality, imbued with symbolic meaning. They employ highly modern techniques but often explore obscure themes, full of poeticism, conveying a historical sense of mission filled with pain and pursuit. Only in the purest moments can you return to the true poetry in your heart: bright white, deep black, vibrant red, morning, and dusk. I learned how precious life is, and my work is influenced by him.

The recent virus outbreak reminds me of vultures. When I was young, I often to sketch at Shanghai Zoo, I was particularly interested in eagles and vultures. I lived in the zoo for several weeks and drew many sketches. Unfortunately, the sketches and photos from that year are lost.

These vultures, apart from their unique immunity, respond to viruses and bacteria following the laws of nature. To express this in my current work, I paint in layers. The subtle shifts in color layers represent indefinable limitations and imposed conditions, confining each individual to a lonely and powerless place, a no-man's land. It seems suffocating, and they struggle to breathe. However, each layer of color contains tiny irregular white spaces, the signs of striving to breathe. As long as there is a glimmer of hope, human beings will tenaciously seize the opportunity for survival.

I often find myself in a neutral space between the natural and the unnatural. We are accustomed to moving aimlessly, puzzled by everything. To break free from this predicament, I am learning to perceive and feel, to pursue purity and express uniqueness – light and darkness, transcendence and heaviness – so that I can truly exist and embrace the richness, vitality, and passion of thought! Modern technological phenomena challenge nature in ways ancient technologies never did, reshaping human society through continuous technological change. Complex white represents the real world, simple red is primal and true, pure black helps build the overall order, integrity, and harmony of aesthetic theory. Although it remains mysterious, it can be imagined freely, like a person in a "middle-aged" state, where imagination is gentle and unrestrained. Natural materials are involved in painting, and the artwork itself carries various traces of its production process, fully understood through the artwork itself.

I'm not going to describe specific scene objects because they lack reference. I avoid limiting myself through images. While I cannot completely abandon conscious experience, I strive to truly participate in it, to not send out any signals, to immerse myself in the situation through desire. This state has no limits, even if ultimately we cannot completely let go of our beliefs, perceptions, and egos. Each viewer has different backgrounds, experiences, knowledge and sensitivities, resulting in highly personal perceptions. This is precious because without the thought process, there would be no concept. If we could know ourselves moment by moment, without accumulating anything, we could observe how silence arises. It is not a product of thought, imagination or cultivation. It is only in that tranquility that creation takes place.