ome think my works are minimalism. It’s actually more than that. If you look closer there is also a stretch of desolated mountains and rivers style of Song and Yuan dynasties. It’s a presentation of how Chinese people indulge one’s feelings in the beauty of natural scenery and express feelings through describing objects.

　　Since Northern Song Dynasty, “desolated mountains and waters” has been a new style for Chinese landscape painting. The trend became more popular in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The style was developed when northern nomads invaded Northern Song Dynasty and caused change of regime. The cultural integration suppressed some writers of Norther Song dynasty from expressing their political ambitions directly. They turned to indulging themselves in natural scenery and depicting desolated landscapes. That’s how it came about. At the end of Ming Dynasty, adherents of former dynasty expressed their complaints and sorrows in arts. Many painters were abandoning set rules of former artists but carrying the same spirit. Badashanren was a benchmark name for that period. He rendered his sorrow and sadness and Zen into landscape painting and established the fame for his personality and his art. His drawings of desolated mountains and waters and other withered scenes project a sense of loneliness and emptiness.

　　In some sense, the invasion and erosion from western culture is history repeating itself.

　　The fading of traditional Chinese culture and objectifying of human beings mirror the discontinuance of culture inheritance. People’s souls are barren, lost with traditional culture. In this context arose the relationship of mending and being mended, and completeness and desolation. In today’s society, a perfect and complete spiritual home is only a vision and incompleteness is normality. Defects in spiritual beliefs lead to some dissimilation and mending therefore becomes more socially significant.

　　Liu used stapling, refining basalts and other techniques to present the connection between pattern and its meaning. Stapled bowl is made of broken pieces stapled together. Why did he pick a bowl? It’s necessary to mention a special recognition of bowls Chinese people have. It can be interpreted as the bowl to eat meals with or a bowl that holds Chinese people’s spiritual needs that have been shaken and broken by western culture. Invasion of “ethnic arts” is related to political and cultural invasion. Under the attack of western cultural and material waves, material desire overpowers and destroys spiritual wellbeing and leads to problems. If people are close to nature, indulging in natural beauty instead of labored by material life, they are free. People today are not. A person’s heart is not split and incomplete. What’s missing in the heart is not nature or the world. It the state of mind that missing. In today’s world, artists should be looking for that peaceful mind passed on from Chinese traditions in its appreciations of natural sceneries. It is very important. How do you find that pure land of peace that your heart belongs to in this chaotic time of changes? The answer is to return to traditional culture. Traditional philosophy and art are about feelings. They best fit our Chinese qualities as they use objects as the medium to convey our emotions and thoughts. Western art is not the same. It’s about being loyal to the actual being. Chinese art is more about using medium. That process is “perfecting”—to perfect one’s dream or complex. I hope to send out a message like this in my work.

　　The basalt piece easily reminds you of smoke and clouds. Winding mountain and changing lines make it look like a scenery floating on the water. It sometimes looks like mountains, sometimes waters or moving fog. Although it’s solid and hard outside, the inner core is flowing. It’s abstraction and actuality interacting with each other. It’s playing a song—it could be High Mountain and Running River or Wild Greese Descending on the Sandbank. It could be a forest that has never been found in the mountain. It shows both reality and ideal.

　　I would also like to mention two pieces here. One is the porcelain Buddha head, which was put in the kiln and burnt at 1300 degrees time and time again until it disappears. The other one is the to treat and refine rock waste found in a mine to reveal its luster. One process is from having a shape to shapeless and the other is otherwise. One is from being bland to shiny. This one is from being non-existing to existing. It is the relationship of being and non-being. The materially non-being exists in people’s heart. This transformation is a practice and escalation. It doesn’t necessarily mean losing something going from being to non-being. The latter status might include everything. All of these works eventually reflect Buddhism and Taoism ideas.

　　Buddhism teaches people to focus on the heart and practice good for a better next life.

　　Taoism teaches people to break free from worries and cumbrance and withdraw from society.

　　Buddhism idea focuses on looking beyond this life. Taoism is about working on your current life. Both come down to practicing the good.

　　Confucianism and Taoism are intertwined, overlapping on entering and withdrawing from the world. Practicing Zen does not lead to becoming Buddha every time but it pacify the mind and creates a peaceful environment. People go back to nature to find this peace. In this bustling society, staying peaceful is a state of mind that fixes the soul. Looking for spiritual stability is also looking for the traditional spirits in the works.

　　Desolated mountains and waters also deserve appreciation.

May 12, 2015 Beijing

作者：LiuYanjun