Untitled by Liu. Photo: Guo Yingguang

When New Wave emerged in art schools in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province in 1985, Liu Guofu, then only 21, immediately decided to exile himself to Xinjiang.

"The most important factor of contemporary art, to me, is to be completely independent from other trends or the mainstream. That's why the curator, Wang Lin, and I entitled my exhibition Fantastic [Scenery], 'fantastic' implicitly meaning peculiar or eccentric," Liu said. "My art reveals personal characteristics, self consciousness and private feelings; it's a product of individualism."

Liu's tour, showcasing 40 romantic fantasy paintings in three series, started at Nanjing in early May, came to Beijing this June, and stops at the Shanghai Art Museum from August 28 to September 9.

Liu’s work Different Landscape No.8. Photo: Guo Yingguang

Born in 1964, Liu realized his talent when in junior high school. "Except for language courses, I had no interest in other subjects and I never went to high school," he recalled. "The only attractive career for a teenager was to be a painter." At 17, Liu studied by himself and was successfully admitted to the Nanjing Academy of Fine Art.

Having graduated in 1985, Liu was already on his way to fulfilling his dreams. "There are three greatest things in people's lives: to do what you like and be financially independent, to be with whoever you love, and to live where you want," he said. "I've accomplished the former two goals. The other reason to go to Xinjiang is for my lover, Chen Bin."

Liu's unconventional experiences served as a catalyst. "In recent 30 years, I think domestic art has been gravely affected by Western aesthetic values, such as modernism and post-modernism, which leads directly to… Westernized and quasi-elitist tastes," Liu said. "It results in a horrid homogeneity."

Utilizing the advantage of being Chinese, Liu infuses a traditional Oriental spirit in his works, to symbolize the situation in China. "Avoiding fashionable artistic expressions, I display the prevalent spiritual status of Chinese people [in] fantastic mental scenery."

Painter Liu Guofu. Photo: Guo Yingguang

Liu "reveals the authentic spiritual confusion hidden deeply in Chinese people's hearts; namely, the loss of individual and cultural identity, as well as the psychological anxiety when facing a permeating corrupt atmosphere in the Chinese political world," noted curator Wang. "Liu's artworks return to the symbolism of natural images, such as flower-and-bird paintings."

Another influential critic, Cui Cancan, commented that Liu's paintings "dissipate the original elements of budding lotus leaves, then create a brand new, whimsical image."

Liu deliberately forgoes all possible traditional connotations. "I oppose straightforward description in my paintings. Rather, I prefer implicit representations," Liu said. Frenzied brushwork, obscure images and glacial colors testify to these aesthetic values.

Having encountering multiple interpretations from different critics, Liu remains open-minded. "Every observer, according to their background, has the right to explain, or even misunderstand the artworks," Liu said. "[That] might even be influenced by temporary physical discomfort."

The successful artwork can trigger the imagination as well as some very subtle emotional feedback, Liu said.

The paintings can roughly be divided into three stages, chronologically, but Liu emphasizes that the whole series correlates. "The aura and concern about humanism are permanent, while the purpose stays the same the whole time."

His artworks are seldom given titles. "They [The paintings] just represent themselves. I worry that a title may degrade the spirituality of these artworks. And these paintings have nothing to do with literature, philosophy, sociology and so on," Liu asserted. "They are a display of incorporeal existence, instead of a dualistic distiction between nihilism and realism… all in all, what I want to do is to insist on my own principle and aesthetic value."

Yin Shangxi, a professor at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, said that Liu's paintings are strongly symbolic. "The salvation of the soul and the significance of life is a mystery for one's whole lifetime," Yin said. "To Liu, painting is like the daily work of a mathematician incessantly close to nature, pursuing its mysterious territory."