Artist Statement

I come from China, which used to be called the world’s manufacturing center. However, in the new age of manufacturing and urbanization, many old factories were abandoned. The industrial ruins reminded me of the modern history of my country and allow me to focus on the impacts of industrialization on our societies and the relationship between civilization and nature.

The series of paintings, Spoiled Landscapes, are about the effects of human activities on the environment. It is also the continuation of the former series Ruins (the Ruins of Industry, the Ruins of War, and the Ruins of Natural Disasters), which was inspired by industrialization. The paintings focus on petroleum, mining, and trash, all of which depict the resources taken from nature and the waste dumped back into the earth and the sea. Petroleum represents energy; mining is the process to extract raw materials; trash is the excrement of industrial civilization. The impacts of the industrial revolution have been so profound that we have pushed the earth into a new geological epoch — the Anthropocene — even though we are still the infants of the Holocene, the epoch that created us. Our civilization’s addiction to these resources puts it on a collision course with disaster. Will this kind of unsustainable development lead to the fall of industrial civilization like the collapse of past societies?

Education

Master of Fine Arts, University of Washington, Seattle
Bachelor of Management, Guangdong Medical University
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts

Exhibitions

2019, Cobblestones and Lumber: UW x SFAI, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
2018, 10 Études for Summer, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle, WA
2018, Summer Works Exhibition, School of Art + Art History + Design, Seattle, WA
2018, Different Strokes, School of Art + Art History + Design, Seattle, WA
2015, Life–Guangzhou the 3rd Sketches Exhibition, Guangzhou Artist Association, Guangzhou, China

Awards

2018, Boyer and Elizabeth Bole Gonzales Scholarship
2015, Bronze Prize of Guangzhou the 3rd Sketches Exhibition

Committee Members

Helen O’Toole (Painting + Drawing)
Zhi Lin (Painting + Drawing)
Philip Govedare (Painting + Drawing)
Ann Gale (Painting + Drawing)
David Brody (Painting + Drawing)