The unique natural and geographical conditions of the Kumtag Desert have created one of the world’s few deserts in close proximity to an urban environment. This boundary between desert and urban city has existed clearly and without interference for thousands of years. This real, geographical boundary underpins the overarching theme of “boundaries” throughout this project.

In the Kumtag Desert, I explore the scope of “boundaries”. I believe that boundaries are not merely lines that divide territories, but rather zones that connect scopes. This idea originated from the Sumeru series. The name “Sumeru” comes from “a mustard seed containing Mount Sumeru”, which means that the microcosm is the universe. While the development of technology flourishes, we cannot deny the existence of decay. Chinese people have long understood this principle — embracing death to give birth, and embracing life to face death. Macro and micro, internal and external, replacing each other cyclically, full of vitality.

Then I move on to explore boundaries in art. Here, “boundaries” occupy two layers of meaning: one is on the visual level, where the red flowers in paintings are derived from red flowers in the natural world and where the theme and expression of painting finds its extension on the painted surface. The other is on the spiritual level, where red flowers bear socio-spiritual meaning, symbolizing in Chinese culture important moments such as marriage, ribbon cutting and awards. But these flowers, as spiritual carriers, are often discarded after the ceremonies or activities, just like the fate of “straw dogs” after the sacrifice. I want to materialize this spiritual symbolization, so that it can be preserved and extended.

Finally, I delve deeper into the “boundary between what is natural and what artificial”, contrasting but not opposing, as humans and our creations are also part of nature. This is an in-depth process: from the transformation of the painted image and the edge of its painted surface, to the boundary between prints and original works of art, then to the relationship between the desert and its view as seen through an acrylic plane, and finally to the relationship between painting — made entirely of natural materials — and nature itself.

The boundary in this work is also a discussion of “the virtual and the real”. Blooming flowers are real while withered ones are virtual; the vitality of life is virtual, yet its constancy is real. Are not the gorgeous flowers blooming in the desert thus spiritual?