Like many architectures and products from China, Chinese painting can’t retain its original color and feeling over time. Even the best Xuan paper will turn yellow after years, oxidation and mildew can damage a heirloom easily. Sometimes this ancient feeling can put a price tag on the object because of the lie of its value as an antique, however the fact is that the object decays, and then keeps rotten.

Traditional Chinese painters didn’t dig into the fact that how an object is formed, rather, they cared about how the canvas is formed by objects - by the dots, lines and shapes (点, 线, 面) extracting from objects, and tried to control the canvas as a whole through real and sham (虚和实) operations of brush. However, the lack of understanding of a single object becomes a big disadvantage of the nation.

By understanding above facts against the traditional form of Chinese art, I admired the execution behind this form of art. To use ink and brush to create a feeling, without errors, requires extreme concentration and determination. Different from other forms of art, the medium of Chinese ink painting is fragile, there is no room for revision. Once there are some careless drops, or a cup of tea spilled on the paper by a cat, there is no savior and the work has to be destroyed.

This practice focuses on “virtual and real”, paying tributes to a great Chinese painter Qi Baishi, who executed the philosophy of balance so right with ink and brush.