My vocabulary is myself.

（Statements by the Artist, 2009)

From Rouge onward, I thought that I wanted to get rid of human figures and to think from the angle of pure life. For as soon as human figures appear on the canvas, it again becomes historical, cultural and so on, very complex. Using things of pure life itself, it becomes simpler, purer, so I wanted to get completely rid of anything humanistic. It is only after arriving at today that I realize that regardless of whether it is wool, geese or the actor in the white mask, they in fact all shackle me, shackle me tightly, and I can only get rid of them again. I always go and develop in a pure direction.

In the Reading series, I was thinking of mankind in itself, plants and animals as such, and completely put aside everything that had gone before. What I began again from scratch was an essential reflection on myself. Being an artist is my identity, but my essential thinking has nothing to do with art. It is about mankind and science, in various aspects. I do not have the linguistic awareness and context from art itself to go and think about problems. It is very hard for an artist to pursue break-through linguistic patterns, and some artists do not find them in their lifetime. I did not go along this kind of old road! I am thinking about the essential questions of life existence: why? Where is the value?

(Liu Chun, Recorded Conversation With Li Shan: Painting Is a Process of Seeking Your Own Inner Truth, 2001[Selected])