栗子的艺术从一开始就有一种神秘晦暗的基调存在。那些身份不明、关系暧昧的人物让我们很难用通常的思维方式去解读。当她转向以景色为主体的描绘时，神秘晦暗的基调愈发强烈。在《迷失》、《160分贝》、《第五类森林》等系列作品中，这种神秘氛围得以进一步渲染。常常是，幽灵般飘忽不定的人物出没在幽暗阴森的树林里，同时相随出现一些不知所云的建筑物、残缺的雕像、不规则几何线型等等。或者在建筑空间出现猛兽、在莫名的空间中出现古老的吊灯、铁艺围栏等等。在近期作品中，她还常常加入英文、图片以强化叙事性，甚至把画框的一角也纳入作品，作为绘画的一部分。而近期作品中更多的则是利用富有庄严感、仪式感的黑纱披挂于画面，迷幻中带来一种似乎与死亡有关的意识。总之材料的不断介入使栗子的作品凭添了更多神秘诡异的色彩和叙事性特征。她的影像作品《一次别离》和《第五类森林》在整体格调上和她的架上作品相近，都可以囊括在栗子所热衷于创造的一种个人化的冷峻、阴郁的“秘境”之中。如她所说，“神秘主义是闭上肉体的眼睛，睁开心灵的眼睛，使心灵的眼睛不受现象世界的干扰，从而返回自我，在心灵的静观中达到真理、智慧。神秘主义的基本信条就是世上存在着秘密的或隐藏的自然力，这种力量被认为可以用来控制环境和预言未来”。

　　栗子的作品很容易让观者把视线转移到艺术家本人。因为本人的阳光和作品所呈现的阴郁格调反差太大，但这正是栗子所想要的效果。栗子是一位对自己有着清醒认识的艺术家，她知道自己该做什么，她不想让自己的作品显得直白和浅薄，但具有深度的作品只靠形式语言的翻新是不够的，所以她努力以自身的文化学养和知识储备，以自身的丰盈来灌注她的作品，以内在的丰厚导引出作品的视觉力量。就她内心的取向而言，她更倾向于对那些与灵魂相关的许多说不清道不明的神秘事物的追问。为此而接触各种宗教教义，但她的神秘主义更接近于巫术，因为艺术本来就起源于巫术（艺术起源说还有劳动和游戏），从神秘的巫术中获得某种精神滋养就是很自然的事。

Chinese Female Art for 30 Years--Lizi

By Jia Fangzhou

　　Mystery and greyish gloomy colors have always been the keynote of Lizi's art. It's very hard for us to read by common sense the unidentified and ambiguous figures. Even when she turns to depict scenery, the keynote of mystery and gloom only gets heavier. In her works series like The Lost, The 160 Decibel, The Fifth Category of Forest, the atmosphere of mystery is rendered further. On her works, there often appears a ghost-like figure floating in between the dim and somber woods, an unintelligible building, a sculpture fragment, an irregular geometry line structure,  a fierce animal in an architectural space, an antiquated ceiling lamp in the unintelligible space, iron fence, etc. In her latest works, she often applies to some English lines or pictures to enhance the narration. Sometimes she includes a frame fragment into the painting and makes it part of the works. Besides, she makes use of the black gauze to increase the sense of solemnity and ceremony, which adds up kind of consciousness of death to the fantasy. All in all, Lizi is always trying to use various materials to add up the mysterious color and the feature of narration. Her video works Farewell and The Fifth Category of Forest are close in tone to her easel works. They all belong to the cold gloomy "secret space"which she is fascinated in creating. As what she said, "Mysticism is seen only when you close the eyes of your body and open the eyes of your soul. Only when the eyes of your  soul are clear off from the interruption of the physical world, you can come to your self in the state of meditation, so as to achieve truth and wisdom. The basic creed of mysticism  is to believe that there is a secret or hidden power in this world, which is used to control the environment and to predict the future."

　　Many people would transfer their focus from her works to the artist herself. It often surprises people when they see the big contrast between the gloomy style of her works and the brightness of her ego,but that's exactly the effect that Lizi wants to create. Lizi has a very clear cognition on herself. She knows what to do. She doesn't want her works to be too straight-forward and superficial. She  knows that it is not enough to enhance the depth of the  works only through form languages, so that she tries her best to promote her culture and knowledge accumulation, so that she enriches her works with the fullness of her mind and triggers the visual power with her inner strength. As far as her inner orientation is concerned, she tends to ask for the answers to those unexplained  mysterious things like souls. She has particular interests on religious doctrines, but her mysticism is more likely to be about the witchcraft, because art origins in witchcraft(there's another saying that art origins in labour and games). So it is natural for her to gain spiritual nourishment from mysterious witchcraft.