How does each individual perceive themselves? How to search for the essence of the self? Will I no longer be me if without certain qualities? These questions seem to be experienced and understood through the relative relationships and influences produced by different environments. The Euphrates poplar (Populus euphratica) trees can be found in many places, but it is only in the special arid climate of Xinjiang that the legend the poplar´s “three thousand years of vitality” has emerged. The significance of my background lies in gradually understanding the surrounding environment and feeling the imagination it subtly instills in me.

The same with spiritual environment. Zhuangzi assigns the meaning of cai, or “material” to deadwood and, when discussing the “wood that cannot be used as material,” points out that dead trees, as well as people, are not necessarily “unusable wood,” but are simply in a state between “being fit to be useful and wanting that fitness,” in other words, contingent upon a choice of attitude towards life and society. Therefore, “deadwood” is endowed one´s choices in life and one´s attitude towards the world. The aesthetic value of dead trees is not only in their physical form but also in human emotions, transcending the subject itself. This imagery is also an inquiry into the essence of life.

The painting chosen for this location is from the Root of All Life series. The name “Root of All Life” comes from the chapter “Letting Be, and Exercising Forbearance” in the Zhuangzi, which says “of all the multitude of things, every one returns to its root.” The “root” is presented as the main part of the painting—whose complexity and entanglement bears its own special sense of aesthetic beauty—as visible elements like mountains, rivers, blood vessels, and lightning, and as invisible elements like cultural context and feelings.