Question: What do you think is the most important thing about painting?
A: Listening to the truest feelings of your inner heart and expressing them.

Question: How did you start working with the subject of animal specimens?
A: In 2003, I painted a group of small paintings that kind of resembled textbook illustrations. For instance, searching for underwater treasures, deforestation, physics experiments, etc. One painting titled “10,000 Years” depicts two people looking up at an elephant’s skeleton. This was actually an unwitting beginning. Later on, I visited a museum of natural history by chance. Inside, there were many specimens that appealed to me. I painted a few, and felt that there were more that could be painted, so I’ve continued until now. Animal specimens possess a quality of uncertainty, something I’ve always wanted to work with. Their inherent mutual contradiction arouses both suspicion and fascination: the surface is lifelike, but in reality it has already been solidified. What you see is vivid in appearance, however it gives off an intense smell of formalin.

Question: Do you favor a certain animal species, or do you paint indiscriminately?
A: I choose the ones I am interested in. Initially, I tried to gather illustrations of every kind of animal specimen and I didn’t intentionally filter them or have preferences. But when I officially started this series, I discovered that there were a lot of animals I simply did not feel for, to the extent that I could not stand painting them. For example, I shot a series of photographs of monkeys. But after making a few pencil sketches, I eventually gave up. Perhaps because to me, monkeys lack mystery, they are too lively. There is actually no absolute answer for this. I’ve painted tigers and leopards, and the interesting thing is, in the specimen room, the most ferocious animal is still the animal you fear most. Even though distinctions of docility and savagery do not exist amongst specimens, and such characteristics are derived from your own common knowledge or memory, when you stand before these specimens, you feel an intense fear. This fear involves common knowledge and memory, as well as other things. The color of their fur is wan and faded, but remaining in the dimness, they maintain their food hunting posture. Comparatively, I like birds. After birds are made into specimens, most maintain the luster in their feathers and are very beautiful. Their image alone can provide me with ideas for a new method of painting: changing frequently, all the while being very natural.

Question: Some of the compositions look very strange. Was this intentional?
A: I didn’t intentionally design the compositions. The specimens appear in their original form in the paintings. In a sense, the method of their exhibition is also the method of their “survival” and one of the contents of my description.

Question: The “Scholar’s Rocks” series you worked on concurrent with the specimen paintings in some ways depict specimens as well – landscape specimens. This series has a flavor of Chinese landscape paintings. Did you derive inspiration from this while you painted this series?
Actually, scholar’s rocks are situated between concrete and abstract form. Painting scholar’s rocks is wanton; you can freely pursue the path of your inner heart, a bit more here or a bit less there, based solely on the desires of the heart, unrestricted by form. The form of scholar’s rocks is like the map of the soul, laden with strange orifices and a nervous texture. It is actually an extension of my map series. From 2000-2004, I painted many topographic maps, such as maps of mountain ranges that were distant and touched upon the most subtle places. Those maps and the scholar’s rocks are actually the same, they can all be considered a space that is “free and one can get lost in.”

Question: Lost?
Right, getting lost is forgetting oneself. You mentioned Chinese landscape painting earlier. Perhaps this connection has to do with the flatness of the painted surface. I try my best to avoid that lifelike spatiality. In actuality, there are some Chinese landscape paintings that I am truly enamored with. The landscapes they depict, rather than alluding to real scenery, come from a world of the soul. One can’t help but admire and respect the state the artist was in when he painted it. Regardless of whether these landscapes are from a past or present reality, you can’t find them. The things that most resemble those paintings are perhaps the scholar’s rocks because scholar’s rocks are also based on the landscape of the human heart.

Question: Which landscape paintings depict the landscapes you speak of?
A: I like Guo Xi, Ni Zan… Ni Zan is my favorite.

Question: In expressing the texture of the scholar rocks, Ni Zan invented the “withered brush, chapped stroke” painting style. While the materials differ completely, your scholar’s rock paintings have a similar feel of withered cliffs and moist pine trees. It seems to me that you are searching for a special way of working on the canvas.
A: I am looking for a kind of painted effect that cannot be pre-conceived; real substance that can be grasped at once by both the eyes and the soul; its texture, subject matter, and the emotions it conveys all correspond with each other.

Question: Your scholar’s rock paintings are laden with moss. Is this interpretation correct?
A: My stones are very old and corroded. Through them, perhaps we can feel those landscapes that belong to the memory, and have been lost. We practically cannot see the past in our current space of existence. When I was little, I lived in a courtyard with a high wall surrounding it. Often, I would imagine that there was a herd of deer or horses behind it. There was moss on the ground. Every now and then, we would have to clean this moss. Now, all of this has been torn down.

Question: Other than the Chinese artists you just mentioned, who are your other influences?
A: My father was my earliest influence. He painted a lot of watercolors when he was young. He painted out of pure interest and never received any professional training. When I was little, the big picture frame in my house had a blue two-inch photo. I always found it very strange. It was somehow different from the other photographs. Later on, I learned that it was one of my father’s paintings. The work made me think that painting was an especially mystical thing, and I hoped that I too would have this kind of skill. The first thing he taught me to paint was a sea conch. He told me to paint the sea conch based on its actual veins. My father was the first person to introduce painting into my life. I enjoy different schools of art. It is almost a voyeuristic enjoyment: understanding how others think, how they make something… being attracted by different works at different stages. Prior to 2000, Picasso’s lithograph “The Frugal Repast” hung on my studio wall. The closely scrutinized fine lines of the painting gave me inspiration to paint. Actually, almost all patterns attract me: Japanese woodcuts, miniatures… there was a period when I often went to construction sites to scavenge for old porcelain pieces. Those porcelain designs and celadon glaze are captivating… I once met a small child who used horizontal lines to draw an egg – a filled up composition became an egg. It was too engaging! So relaxing! It’s been hanging in my house this whole time.

Question: What are your plans for this year. Have you had recent exhibitions?
I always hope to produce more good work. However, to me, a more relaxed work mentality is probably more interesting than making plans. Aside from group exhibitions, I have a solo exhibition in June.

Question: Which works will be exhibited?
There should be about 23 paintings from the past two or three years. There are maps, scholar’s rocks, specimens, and some new paintings.

Question: What expectations do you have for this exhibit?
I hope to see my works anew, through fresh eyes, to see a more comprehensive result for the past two years’ work and still think: ‘not bad’ – this is enough.