-Why did you choose to develop painting as your artistic technique? 

As an oldest and most traditional media, painting also implies limitless possibilities. Every stroke embodies the unique personality of an artiest. On the other hand, it is like the sedimentation of time bit by bit. This is particularly precious in an era that everything is industrialized, mechanized and computerized. To me, painting is like the daily secret diary and the painting process is my interactions with canvas and pigment, which can not be mapped out. We may make a sketch or a design sketch with computer before painting, but the surprises that painting often brings to me in the process are far beyond the result of painting. Sometimes, the picture seems to trap in a deadlock. However, it changes suddenly on the heels of a certain dot and seems to turn into a new level and looks richer. All in all, the painting action is my conversation with canvas, while the ending of the conversation is the accomplishment of my works, which are developed upon my identity in the past and now all the way. The peculiarity, personal privacy as well as the image construction patterns of painting is still unable to be replaced by other media, as we cannot replace the real Louvre with a virtual one in network. This is the reason why I’m deeply in love with painting as well.

-How did you come to use a mixture of Chinese traditional techniques with Western ones? And about your current art work, mixing also photographic techniques?

Before my oil painting creation, I have buried myself in traditional Chinese paintings for more than a decade. I’m always addicted to the black and white world of Chinese ink. The so-called “five-colored toner” means the different gray scales (corresponding to the colors of oil paintings in the West) formed in harmonious proportion of ink and different quantities of water. A few colors, even the two colors of black and white are used in many of my later oil paintings only. Chinese ink often diffuse on rice paper as it can uptake water. So, in my oil paintings, the pictures look fuzzy, like pigments diffusing on canvas. I think the impact of the learning of traditional Chinese skills on my later oil painting creation is unconscious and subtle. When it comes to the photographic realistic skills in the end, my recent Children series discusses about the past and contemporary social background of China by centering on childhood, because I hope my works to have reflection function and “pseudo-documentary” function like a “mirror”.

-How do you combine your education from Chinese art school with the European (French) art school? Would you explain the relation between technique and freedom?

I began to learn Chinese painting in the major form of counter-drawing when I was six years old. I focused on the learning of skills at that time. As soon as ink falling on the paper, it can not be modified or deleted any more, unlike oil paintings, which can be overlapped. Hence, a whole painting may frequently become invalid due to a careless stroke during the course of painting and has to be repainted. All these help to train the accurate paces of the painter’s hands and brain. The meditation long before painting and the painting at one stretch after the brush falling on the paper are both the major characteristics of Chinese painting creation as well. So, although I haven’t been unable to create an oil painting at twenty-two years old when I came to Paris, I understood the techniques on the whole. The six year’s learning at Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris later was, on the one hand, aimed at knowing oil painting techniques well and on the other, aimed mainly at developing my field of vision, which enabled me to learn about western contemporary art comprehensively. In the face of such freedom, I felt like “a fish in the sea”. As fish need energy in order to move about in the sea, the skill training on Chinese painting for more than a decade seemed to become food I have eaten, which enabled me to try all kinds of skills and styles freely, rather than giving up some means of expression due to the limitation of techniques.

-Which Chinese artists have influenced your work and how? How about Western artists? Which ones are interesting for you?

Two Chinese artists who have an impact on me are Bada Shanren, an outstanding painter in our country in late Ming and early Qing Dynasty as well as Ren Bonian. Zen spirit is reflected in the paintings of Bada Shanren, who expressed his own stance on the secular world with concise painting skills, while Ren Bonian has skillfully bridged the Chinese and western elements and achieved a balance between popularity and elegance. One of the western artists who have an impact on me is Francis Bacon. I remember that I have gone to Centre Georges Pompidou no sooner than I arrived in Paris. There, I visited the exhibition which cast a great impact on me for the first time. As I watched too many socialistic-style works and pointless landscape paintings domestically, the contrast was sharp in particular. I recognized that the value of an artist lies in the exploration of true self. I’m also very fond of Gerhard Richter and Neo Rauch. Both of them hang their mature individual styles together with the social backgrounds.

-Do you feel that this relationship between Eastern and Western influences works in balance, in harmony, or is it in constant conflict, and from there you create your work?

There has been sixteen years since I arrived in Paris in 1996. In this regards, the impacts from the East and the West should have achieved a balance and should have been complementary to a greater degree. I will never mind whether the impacts come from the East or the West in the arts creation process, for they have actually mixed together and found out their own way of running-in, and my works should be the displaying of such balance. The portrait in the works is me, a Chinese face, while it contains many western elements in the thoughts of arts creation and tactics.

-Would you tell me more about the Chinese symbolism in your paintings?

I’m very interested in the symbolic significance and changes of colors in Chinese culture. For example, “red” implies joy in Chinese tradition and in turn for revolution after the Communist Party coming into power. You may find that both symbolic significances exist in China nowadays. “Blue” hardly has a symbolic significance in Chinese culture, but it symbolizes capitalism – the civilization from the sea in the recent decades. The traditional Chinese culture often endows some plants and animals with corresponding symbolic significances. I have absolutely overthrown their traditional symbolic significances in my Blue series (2000-2004)  by changing the backgrounds of these ancient flower-and-bird paintings into the “capitalistic blue”, while changing the birds and flowers implying luck or wealth into consumption monsters implanted in toys and sexual organs.

-“The two most important aspects of art are feeling and experience” 

Do you keep this conception when developing your technique?  Is your work spontaneous or you make a plan before facing the canvas? Would you explain what your creation process is?

My way of arts creation is diversified and can be adjusted according to different series and themes. For example, the Self Portrait's Deformation series in 2000-2006 is more spontaneous, for it is a description of my current status. I tried to seize the ever-changing “myself” by painting, so the pictures were traceable along with the interactions with me. The recent Children series talk about the past and narrative. I need a good many of picture information to try all sorts of combinations in computer. Thus, the draft has been in my mind before painting. Of course, entirely different feels can be brought while facing small pictures on screen and while standing in front of a large canvas. The image can be frequently modified and adjusted as the arts creation going on and the foregoing draft is only for reference, for the interaction between the direct feel in front of canvas. And, the painting itself is the foremost forever.

-Are you appealing to the traditional Chinese symbolism, and therefore to Chinese roots and collective memory with the work of Chinese traditional techniques and Chinese simbology?

Chinese symbolism has little impact on my latest works. Instead, the traditional Chinese techniques I learnt at an early age have been already in my blood. Although I can seldom probe into them in my arts creation process, they are revealed naturally. For example, the training on brushwork in traditional Chinese techniques is very important. However, when I pick up artist’s brush, although the way I hold the brush is different from that of brush pen, some concept will still go into my oil paintings subconsciously. I also dilute my pigment with a large quantity of turpentine, which is as natural as I put thick ink- soaked brush pen in water. Nevertheless, I only recognize it afterwards.

-Is there a special meaning behind your usage of Chinese ideograms on your paintings? As it explicitly shortens the quantity of people capable of read it, does it have something to do with the lack of communication channels and the severe control over media in China?

I always concern about the social forces produced by written languages. All kinds of processed media resources ranging from political slogans flooded the streets in 1970s and 1980s in China to the overspreading commercial advertisements nowadays make us dazzled. So, I call it “written language violence”. That is, people who control over written languages will control over the society. In my works therefore, I often juxtapose these written languages from different eras and sources. China possesses the most powerful network filtering system in the world and consultations therefrom are usually selected. These filtered event headlines also become part of the background texts of my works. In some other works, I take Chinese characters apart and recombine them, which then become meaningless forms and structures. At this time, neither Chinese nor foreigners can read them, but the pressure from them can still be felt. This mainly stems from the way of displaying. In this regard, the social forces of written language prevail all over the world.

-What is your approach to the current structure of Chinese society? Would you be so kind of talking about the different subjects that you’ve worked on your previous artworks?

Nowadays, Chinese society is experiencing a great change. Few people believe in Marxism-Leninism now and the absence of belief enables this change to bring more pain to us. In the face of crony capitalism, extreme disparity between the rich and the poor as well as the popularity of corruption, China has to adopt one of the following two measures: going back to the state of North Korea or furthering up its reform, rather than keeping still. Now, evidences show that China will deepen its political restructuring in the manner of Taiwan or Japan. Let’s discuss about my early works from my arrival in France. Bacon’s works had a great impact on me. In the several years after 1996, I kept creating expressionistic paintings. However, after the year 2000, I began to develop and try entirely different styles, including the Blue series, Self Portrait's Deformation series which still under the impact of Bacon, the series taking hair as the media and the LC series. When my solo exhibitions were held in this period, viewers normally mistook them as group exhibitions of several artists. These multi-direction researches will lay a solid foundation and provide tool libraries for the arts creations in the rest of my life. So, it was the span development of two-dimensional plane from the year 2000 to 2006. Nevertheless, the Children series thereafter, from single black and white head portrait to the Me and My Brothers series and up to the recent large-scale scene and social issues is the development of three-dimensional depth on one dot and is a deep exploration. I will also make the similar deep exploration on other dots in the future.

-How has Chinese contemporary history influenced your work? How is it reflected on your paintings? Do you question your own identity by questioning Chinese culture?

I was born in 1970s, the later period of the Cultural Revolution in China, with the reform and opening up followed in 1980s. Then, China gradually became the “world factory” in 1990s. Up to the polarization between the rich and the poor as well as all sorts of democratic appeals currently all cast a deep impact on our generation, a transitional generation. I often come back China to look for inspiration. All the domestic changes seem to closely link with me and stimulate my desire to paint. Such intimacy will not die away due to my long-time sojourn overseas. Instead, it even becomes stronger due to suppression. Nonetheless, when I engage in thinking and painting in France, such geographic sense of distance enables me to look upon China more hardheadedly, and I can consider my own identity again from the angle of the world. At present, there are nearly millions of Chinese residing abroad. Under the macro-background of globalization, their identities have become mixed and indistinct gradually. The Mixed Species series that I painted during the year 2003 to 2005 is particularly aimed at this issue. From the year 2008 to the present, I painted the LC Body series and described myself  as a monster of mixture. In the meantime, the Children series aimed to trace back to the source of my identity. That is, where am I from? So, my works are developed by focusing on my own identity all the time.

-Can you tell me about your current exposition on Stephen Friedman Gallery, why did you choose to focus on Chinese childhood?   

Stephen Friedman Gallery is a very avant-garde and professional British gallery, which represent  a good many of the most outstanding contemporary international artists. This is their first exhibition of Chinese contemporary artists’ works and also my first solo exhibition in London. Eight large-scale oil paintings were on show in this exhibition and the subject of the one child policy was continued. Meanwhile, consideration on other current social issues in China was added in. Childhood is only a representation and bridge, upon which the social background was discussed. Childhood is also like a lovely and attractive door, luring people to push and step in. However, the cruel social reality inside is in stark contrast to the innocent world, such as the painting 'Recruitment #1' and 'Bullet Holes'. The 'Reverse Walk” and 'Inverse China's Daily' are to talk about the stance of the artist, while the 'Self Portrait-Incense', 'Return with Fruitful Result' and 'Riding in the Neon' are to probe into my plural identities.

-How does this one-child policy determine the current Chinese society? From a society standpoint, what caused the mistrust and loneliness? And from your point of view?

China’s “one child” policy is unique both in the world and in Chinese history. It may be cancelled in the near future, but it is an innovation of policies without parallel in history and without counterpart in future. Each time when I go on a tour around the United States or the Europe, in which the families possesses three children normally, the overflowing joy stimulate me a lot. I felt myself was born in a quite unique generation. Why did it fall on me? According to the logic of “one child” policy, a young couple will have to support twelve elders (given that they are all healthy) in a couple of decades. Such an abnormal population structure will push China to aging and recession in advance. Meanwhile, in view of the little proportion of young people, China will become a country with most expensive service charge in the world. Psychologically, due to the absence of even-aged playmates in a family, the child is apt to develop self-interested and relatively closed thinking model. Besides, due to the absence of interaction and sharing experiences, trust will be confined to the small family and the future society will be comprised of isolated small families. Children will care about the interests of their own families and become indifferent to other families and the society. It will be quite tedious if the “one child” policy is discussed from the angle of sociology, anthropology or psychology. That is not the key point I am interested in as well. I just want to talk about my own experience based on painting and tell my own stories, for that is the exclusive living experience of my generation in China.

-Do you feel that being an only child increased or helped you to be more in touch with your imagination?

In my childhood memories, I was always alone, because my parents must go to work. Thus, drawing became an important pastime. I would imagine that there was an even-aged child playing with me, playing chess with me and chatting with me. I would change my parents’ queen-size bed into battlefield and change quilts into barriers to make war and shoot toward the imaginary enemy. I can play for a very long time. Besides, the uppermost thing was drawing. At that time, my parents had no money to buy pencils and papers for me. Therefore, I picked up a piece of fossil and drew on the ground, streets and the toilet doors nearby. I found that the imaginary objects could be actualized and materialized through drawing. I remember the themes at that time were horse and soldier. Neighbors told my mother: “You don’t have to worry about looking for your son. So long as there are drawings all over the ground, he must be at hand.” Maybe the identity of the only child made me fall in love with drawing more and fall in love with the feel of imagining and drawing alone. I’m aware all the time that my state today is still the same as thirty years ago. I never need an assistant and I like staying alone. There is no difference except that I draw on canvas now yet on the ground of public area before. I still draw from morning till night.

-“Painting has become some kind of psycotherapy for me to interpret my experience” Is this an important aspect of your work as an artist? What role do you develop as an artist? What’s your goal as an artist?

I hope to remedy the absent contents of my childhood with painting. This is also an important starting point of the Children series. As taking photos was an extravagant thing at that time, I have altogether taken five photos only, respectively when I was two, three, five and six years old. My father was the publicity agent in the army then. He took the photos for me by “secretly” bringing the camera of the army home. The five photos are the sole material evidence of my childhood, as the kindergarten I attended, the hospitals and home have been demolished for a long time and their images have become so vague along with the urbanization process of China in the past two decades. Therefore, the painting process is actually creating these new material evidences. Painting is not copying my childhood, but building a parallel childhood that I expect. There, I play with my brothers. As a result, I need to create a group of fictitious brothers. I hardly possessed toys in my real childhood. Then on the pictures, I paint colorful and hot toys nowadays. On the pictures, I do things I had no courage to do in my childhood. So, painting is the psychotherapy to me. As an artist, I want to discuss by exploring my own childhood: an individual is so helpless in the cruel social reality that he has to comfort himself by imagination. As a matter of fact, an artist discusses about the society in a relatively indirect way. However, he is under a real state and very independent.

-One of the most common pursuits followed by Chinese contemporary artists is related to be free to create. Are you looking for artistic freedom as well?

As I painted mainly in Paris during the past decade, my perception to freedom of arts creation is surely different with domestic artists. I have ever worked in Beijing, China for more than half a year in 2008 and thus directly interacted with the native artists. At that time, many artists liked to cluster. So, they rented rural land in the outskirts of Beijing together to build studios, just like the Barbizon in France in those years. However, these studios were forcibly demolished by the government in less than a year. Contemporary artist is a group of marginal people in Chinese society and also a group of people thirsty for freedom. Although they can close the door and bury themselves in arts creation freely, displaying is another thing. They don’t have the freedom of displaying, for China is extremely strict in cultural censorship. They can choose skills at will, but they have to avoid sensitive issues when it comes to themes. They must learn how to detour ahead.

-What’s the influence that your work can have in your country? Do you feel you can collaborate to rethink Chinese identity or social issues in foreign countries?

It is always hard for my works to access to the official displaying platform of China. I have held my first solo exhibition at Shanghai Contrasts Gallery in 2010 and held another solo exhibition at Hong Kong Arts Centre in 2011. As a result, the repercussion of exhibition in Hong Kong was greater and there were a good many of media reports (Hong Kong only instead of the whole China). Artistic painting is the media at slower propagation speed relative to movies, network and television, for it needs to be understood slowly. As my works discuss about the feels of Chinese people born in my generation, they will surely give rise to greater resonance gradually. Residing abroad and in comparison with the surrounding cultures, I can look at my Chinese identity and social issues more objectively. In the meantime, absence makes the heart grow fonder. The white area resulted from such absence is right the place where arts can step in, for it brings the imaginary space. I feel that it is too near to discuss about Chinese issues in China just as the Chinese saying: “the person inside the incidence is blinded by the incidence.”

-What ideals are you planning to state in your art work?

I think today's artists use different media and expression according to the subject. Style is no longer the barrier to creation, it's just an external label. My recent children's series is made by painting, and due to the handmade and personal features when I paint, each stroke becomes a sediment of time. The final work is the result of an accumulation of individual strokes and for this reason painting seems he most appropriate medium for my ideas.

I use a photo-realist style in the hope of imbuing the painting with a type of 'mirror feature' which could reflect social change in China and my personal experience with it. I return to China regularly and more and more find it to be a society of overlaps – different times, cultures and ideologies overlap in parallel ways. In the villages for example you will find the old China of about 30 years ago, but in the big city you will feel the modern side and the future of the country.  This mix of time and space, memory, the virtual and reality can be confusing at times. This is why I use a technique of superimposing several layers of images. The overlapping layers will inevitably abstract parts of the final image, and these parts will have to be read and understood differently from the rest of the painting. I rarely think about the issue of style within my creative process. The way I paint is just a very natural process which is unconsciously linked to my personality.

-“If there's a photograph, it (the subject) won’t be forgotten. We recover the sound of the voice, the smell and the sense of tact” said a Chilean photographer. How do you feel about this quote? Do you feel that your use of photography in your artwork relates with it?

The five photos provided for reference in my Children series were taken by my father omnivorously for the purpose of recording. The surrounding environment was seldom recorded in these photos and some even quite vague. They are just ordinary family photos different from professional photograph. The information in the five photos is obscure and limited. This is the very reason why I materialized them through my painting. The obscuring and limitation provide me with wider imaginary space. I take a lot of photos as well when I come back China each year and I don’t care about the independent value of these photos too much, because they are mostly provided for the preparation work in prior period, as all my attentions will be paid to my last “imagined” photograph – the final painting.

-What are you currently working on? Are you planning on treating post-childhood subjects, like adolescence or youth?

The Self Portrait's Deformation series and  LC Body series created in the early days both discuss about myself nowadays. I need to continue this series after finding new breakthrough point. This is also my attitude toward all the previous series. I painted wire netting recently or turned the background upside down in some other paintings - in a media world full of lies, this might be a reading method for truth discovery. Generally, I make a plan for the next painting only. Because I need to find an intensified excitement or impulse on thoughts before moving to the canvas and these are hard to be achieved by long-term planning. I also want to have a try on sculpture with broken glass from smashed wine bottles being inserted on it…

-And finally, what would be the role of the artist nowadays? And how would you define your role or mission as an artist?

When I was learning traditional Chinese painting in my childhood, I have appreciated literati paintings in ancient China all the time. It is contrary to court painting and the painters are concurrently writers, musicians and even politicians, for whom, Painting is not occupation, but part of the life, which is as natural and sheer as floret coming out from a branch. To me, the painting process itself is an amazing experience and a way of living. However, it should not be the product created by lofty and unsophisticated artist only, especially in the days with diversified multimedia and democracy like today. Meanwhile, we are in an era most tolerant to artists. In this era, artists from all kinds of schools and all sorts of artistic forms coexist and in which everyone can be an artist without the determination of quality. I’m constantly exploring my own forms of creation according to my characteristics. However, it is particularly important in an era of contemporary art teemed with rubbish if we want to lift them up to a mature level both on technique and thought.