Bio

I got addicted to taking pictures in my early teens. But I had no idea that photography would one day become the sole outlet of my suppressed emotions. The last few years of the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 76) were probably the darkest time in recent Chinese history when speaking one's mind could immediately invite political persecution. Even private conversations would inflict danger if they accidentally involved the mildest criticism of the government and the status quo. Ideological "culprits" commonly were prosecuted, whereas the most severe cases received capital punishment. As a result we all learned to hide our thoughts while sugar-coating our daily "tune" in accordance with the flourishing "revolutionary" propaganda. Fortunately, in photography I found a safe haven for my mind, a spiritual world of my own, and most importantly, the way to keep a "diary" immune to ideological scrutiny, as long as my lens stayed away from taboo topics.

In my college years in the late 70s and early 80s, I started to travel all over China, photographing landscapes, rural people with local customs, and many minority tribes. My photography received wide recognition in magazines and newspapers and at various exhibitions.

In 1983, I came to the US to begin my M.F.A. studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Throughout the 80s I did photo exhibitions, lectures, workshops and had my work collected by private art collectors. It was also published by various magazines and publications, including the Encyclopedia Britannica.

In the early 90s I started the business of commercial photography, graphic design and printing.

My creative mind was never idle. I took this opportunity to clear my thoughts and refresh my conception of fine art. While continuing my fine art photography, I read a lot of materials in literature and visual arts in search of fresh expressions. I knew it was a widely-held notion that fine artists might lose their acuteness after years of commercial undertakings. Yet I vowed to differ. In fact, many new ideas, such as the themes of "Moods" and "Sky", were hatched during this period.

In 2001 I started to develop new perspectives and expressions in photographing nature with the "Moods" series, as well with the "Transfiguration" series that was initiated in the 80s. These were basically straight images, with minimal benefit of computer image editing except for color and tonality enhancement, much the same as what I used to do in the darkroom. The "Sky" series has received a thorough overhaul, followed by my updated interpretations. I have now adopted a macroscopic perspective that enables me to combine and merge elements with more freedom for a multi-dimensional projection.

"Fusion 25", my latest series since 2008, was a conceptual series on my experiences as an artist in the past two decades, as well as my thoughts on Chinese sociological and cultural phenomena regarding the Chinese farmers and Tibetans.