Some thoughts on my own paintings

Previously, I didn’t think my paintings needed descriptions or explanations. Viewers see what they see. The visual system I organize with color, shape, and line already presents the structure of my consciousness. I never considered those brilliant art critiques in history as belonging to painting—I thought they belonged to literature.

So for the past few years, I’ve only noted the dimensions and materials on my work.

But as time goes on, I feel like I want to say something. Thank you to so many friends who love my paintings, who sincerely appreciate them, and who sincerely ask questions. Before, I didn’t answer. Tonight, I’ll try to think about it, and try to say something.

First, many people ask me what the small squares represent. I really love something Francis Bacon said: If you try to explain your art, you’re trying to explain your intuition. The first small squares (or dots) appeared purely out of intuition. At the very end of a painting, I just felt the image needed that point—only then did I achieve the balance in my mind.

As for the square, I see it as representing humanity’s capacity for rational thought. We use reason and mathematics to interpret this complex world. There are no pure geometric forms in nature; we use regular geometry to measure an irregular world. I paint irregular dots, lines, and planes in an unconscious way—like this world, like nature. And regular geometry is like our minds, which we use to measure the universe and nature.

I find this really interesting. I love this relationship between freedom and rationality. They contrast with each other, yet understand each other, together forming a kind of tension of life.

Also, I like to paint these small squares very small—like each of us in this vast universe. Maybe a little lonely, but never alone. Because we have the power to maintain balance in the whole, the reason to measure the cosmos, and the freedom that words cannot express.