At first glance, it is hard to tell what Tian Liang actually paints. Examining closely, the viewer may find a distorted human body lying, sitting or squatting in the frame, nude and alone.However, stepping back, his cold color and brushwork give the feeling of traditional water-and-mountain paintings.While the traditional mountain paintings offer seemingly peaceful images, Tian's artworks are quite the opposite."I am always searching for the unique characteristics of Chinese oil paintings, or the oil paintings by Chinese artists," says Tian, a Sichuan Province native, whose solo exhibition "Relative Security" is now on show at Feizi Gallery on Fuxing Road W."For me, painting is not only a basic instant that transmits my emotions and thoughts, it's like an hide-and-seek game. At first, you may see a nude human figure, and then it's like scenery painting. Finally you may hardly understand what I'm painting at all," the artist says."The point is not what I paint," says Tian, dismissing those who say his paintings are only about sex. "The point is why I paint it. The nude human body is a platform for my ideas."Tian is a thinker - a thinker about life. In his eyes, everyone is a lonely creature, no matter how tightly they may seem to be bound together, just as the theme of the exhibition, "Relative Security." Sometimes people appear relatively secure when they are actually very alone.Robin Suri, an art critic, lauds high praise on Tian's artworks. "The color, brushwork and technical aspects of his creations seem to engender or reflect visual traditions indigenous to China, yet we may perceive something of an anomaly in the historical context, as the artists works to further the dismissal of a facile East-West dichotomy," wrote Suri, in one of his articles.Having been an oil painter for many years, this timid artist has found many different hues between black and white. Most of his paintings are devoid of colors, red and pink are rarely found.Tian says that when he is painting, he finds that sometimes the state of being lonely can be beautiful, but it can also be cruel. "Beautiful things usually end up painful," the artist concludes.