The meaning of 镜（ jìng ）in Chinese:
1. A mirror - the device used to reflect an image.
2. Appliances made using optical principles, the lenses of which are usually made of glass.
3. To monitor and learn from.
4. To shine.
The Buddha says: Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. If your heart is still, everything is still; if your heart is unchanged, everything does not change. What it means is that all changes in the world arise with our thoughts so that the world becomes compatible with us. As long as your heart is still, the world is still and as long as your heart stays unchanged, the world does not change. It’s like the world is the mirror of our own mind. Living in the modern age, when we look at the mirror and at everything in the world, what do you see? The energy captured in the painting jìng (“The Mirror”) may be my own, or it may come from anyone else who is looking at it.
There are two kinds of energies in everybody, the Yin and Yang, which exist like the dragon and phoenix in traditional Chinese culture. An old saying goes, "the dragon and the phoenix together bring prosperity", the deeper meaning of which is that when the two energies of Yin and Yang reach a balance, it reaches “harmony". The painting jing aims not to showing the state after harmony is reached, but the energy dynamics before harmony. The audience will also find that the dragon and phoenix in the center of the painting are not the usual peaceful style in traditional Chinese culture but are with the fierce look as they are perceived in the Western culture. This fierceness comes from the confrontation within the two energies, and the confrontation comes from Separation of the two energies from our inner mind.
Jìng starts from the mirror stand at the bottom. Such kind of stand is usually used to propitiate Buddha statues in Thangka, a Tibetan Buddhist painting style. Going up from the stand is the center of the mirror with the dragon and the phoenix. I added ceramic plates at the center of the two-dimensional canvas to break the spatial limitations and make it three-dimensional. Around the mirror are leftover shell materials from construction site of buildings. These shell materials formed three types of energies that spread outward, implying the philosophy of Taoism in Tao Te Ching “One begot two. Two begot three. And three begot the ten thousand things”.
In such energy dynamics are also two Buddha statues in the upper right and left corners. These two images are from two of the Four Guardians of Buddha – Dhrtarastra with the traditional Chinese musical instrument Pipa and Virupaksa with the snake. The Pipa stands for compassion and protection of all living beings. String instruments should have a proper level of tensity. Being too tight they break easily and being too loose they make no sound. It represents “the middle way”, which calls on moderation in all things in the world. The snake stands for the changes in the world and observing the world with a pure eye. In the world people need to observe the situations and adapt to them. It is precisely with these two philosophies and methods of "moderateness" and "changeability" that we find the harmony of Yin and Yang after observing their inner confrontation, and in this way we walk away from Separation to the Oneness in our heart.
In the creation of “Jìng”, I drew the two energies from the dragon and the phoenix – the dragon was painted with continuous curves like flowing water, and the phoenix is depicted with hard and sharp facets like cut surfaces – the whole painting shows deconstruction and redefinition. Compared with my previous works, the breakthroughs of painting materials are even upgraded. As mentioned, I added shell materials which are used for building construction into the painting. What’s more, the eyes of the dragon and the phoenix are made of collectible beads from the package of the famous Chinese alcohol Moutai, the best known in all Chinese liquor, the price of which is usually more than 1,000 RMB for one bottle and some people even spent more than 10,000 for it. There are two beads on each bottleneck which are collectible. There is a Chinese idiom “huà lóng diǎn jing” which literally means to add eyes to a dragon and refers to the “making the finishing touch”. This time I made the finishing touch for the dragon and the phoenix with these two beads, the substance formed under the Chinese alcohol culture.
