For sixteen years, I have gone through life in a dream-like state. I should say that I have been generating works of art for the past years out of these sixteen years of dreaming.

One's artistic instincts depend on emotion and, living as I do in a haze, there are many parts of my work that is even hard for myself to explain. Yet I persevere in following the feelings that drive me artistically, and I continue to create physical manifestations of my dream.

In the early 1990s, as a high-level white collar office worker in a foreign enterprise, I overheard Mr. Li Xianting giving a speech on Chinese contemporary art.  (This was at a time when many artists felt the need for a breath of fresh air, as it were, to inspire them and take their work in a more contemporary direction.) It was as though someone had sprinkled salt on my bland and tasteless life, an indescribable feeling, and from that moment on I became infatuated with thoughts of contemporary art.

After a while I began to make the acquaintance of a growing number of contemporarily-minded artists  Lao Li, Liao Wen, Fang Lijun, Li Tianjin, Liu Wei, Yue Minjun…at the time, they were neither famous nor rich, but compared to my white-collar life they had boundless freedom; they could pursue whatever passions they had and do what they liked.

I was inspired! One day I borrowed several artists' catalogues from Lao Li's home, which were filled with the installation works of foreign contemporary artists. There weren't very many books, yet I spent three days and three nights poring over them.  Over a week later, I packed to go to Europe, returning to Vienna, where I had once lived. I also chose several of my pieces to take with me, throwing all of my energy into my arrangements. (At that time, installation art was still relatively rare in China.)

I lived in Europe for five or six years, returning to my homeland in 1999. The past ten years of my life have been devoted to transforming myself into an installation artist, of which there are not many in the world  one cannot eat one's art! However, I remained devoted to my dreams, and infatuated with my art! Unsurprisingly, within a few years I was penniless! I remember one time in Nanluogu Street, going into a paper shop where the shopkeeper overheard me asking for half a sheet of kraft paper to use for designing my installations, upon which he gave me all of the paper packaging that he no longer had any use for, for free. I will never forget the look of concern and bewilderment on his face, nor the obvious pity that he felt for me…

Through these sixteen years of ups and downs, I cannot say how many exhibitions I have participated in, nor the number of works I have created  I have no idea how many dreams in progress I have yet to complete. For each of these, there have been countless challenges and difficulties that I would be hard pressed to forget.

In truth, what is art? What is a work of art?
I often feel that art is like a lover that one can never quite be rid of, or a marriage that can never end in divorce; like a tree that grows within my body, the roots and branches growing through every vein, every nerve. It permeates my very being, affecting my every mood and sentiment.  In return, it gives me endless joy and the freedom to the extend of my life.

At times when I run into someone accidentally, and they mention that they have seen my work someplace or in somebody's home, I feel as I would for children who have already left home, and wonder whether my works still 'remember' me? Still have that connection with me?

However, like a snail cannot leave its shell, I cannot crawl out of this dream that I have woven around myself through my art.