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 accidently 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 in 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, with the understandable exception of the "people" part.

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. However, it was in the early 90s that my fine art creation took a slight turn, as I started the business of commercial photography, graphic design and printing.

My creative mind was never idle. I considered it a good opportunity to clear my thoughts and refresh my conception of fine art. The goal was to eventually instill more distinctive personal touches in handling my subject-matter. An axiom forged in my SAIC years also kept prodding me: push the envelope to turn the ordinary into extraordinary, and the extraordinary into unique. I read a lot of materials in literature and visual arts and never stopped observing the outside world through my mind's eye. Although I did not seek public exposure, my photographic "diary" continued with due diligence. Between commercial projects I would make time to do some creative shooting and image manipulation 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. That was a period I often jokingly referred to as my artistic "hibernation". But in fact, many new ideas, such as the themes of "Moods" and "Sky", were hatched during this period.

In 2001 I started to put my new ideas into practice. The landscape projects, the "Moods" and the "Bang" series, initially done on film and now in digital imaging, were among my first attempts. I chose to travel to many scenic places and tried to present them with different sensibilities as well as with a distinctive personal style. 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. On top of looking for unique angles for each shot, I have now adopted a macroscopic perspective that enables me to combine and merge elements with more freedom for a multi-dimentional projection. The other themes have also undergone their respective progresses and as ongoing topics, remain at the cross-hair of my mind's eye.

To my great relief, all my endeavors in the commercial field were not in vain. The demand for technical excellence has proved a welcome plus in the quality presentation of my portfolios.