L-Art Gallery presents Wandering, featuring works from Liu Yujie.

Artist Statement:

In the end of September, I took Sichuan-Tibet Highway to go to Tibet. Through the visual experience, I acquired a different understanding of the concept “wandering”. Creation related to the theme “wandering” has been carried out for quite a long period of time. During the preparation of the exhibition, being able to use sensory organs to absorb and praise the spirit of nature and life and a personal visual language to accomplish a spiritual output and provision, coincidence like this, is undoubtedly an ultimate relief.

The different feelings about “wandering” possessed by traditional literati and contemporary intelligentsia is the content I want to interpret and express under the theme of “wandering”. Being close to nature and favoring landscapes is an organic part of traditional literati life. Life experience and cultural mode like this has deeply settled in the hearts of intelligentsia all through the ages. Honestly, contemporary intelligentsia is no exception: they place their feelings heavily on landscapes and enjoy the ease of wandering a lot. However, the life mode of industrialization, urbanization and mechanization has made them drift further and further away from nature. The opportunity to be close to nature has thus become estimable. Even though there were a chance to touch nature, their choice of landscapes and spiritual pursuit embodied could be different from traditional literati due to the evolution of living background. Perhaps, it is just because of the existence of this difference, the pursuit and inheritance of traditional literati’s “wandering” status can only be a utopian yearning for contemporary intellectuals.

—Liu Yujie

Image: © Liu Yujie
Go Hunting, 2013
Oil on canvas
96 x 120cm