Paradise on Earth · Kunming
March – April 2026
- Material
- Ink on raw xuan paper
- Dimensions
- 120 × 50 cm · 47 × 20 in
- Location
- Kunming, Yunnan
City Mountain · 2 of 5
Picture Story
Ink on raw xuan paper, 50 × 120 cm, created in Kunming, 23 March 2026.
The artist returned to the old site of Qipan Mountain where he had lived in seclusion for five years, depicting from memory the mountains and the lights of Kunming city. The rising "mushroom cloud" in the painting juxtaposes local scenery with the shadow of nuclear war, warning humanity with "beautiful war": from the Opium War to present conflicts, behind prosperity lurks the crisis of violence slipping out of human control.
The work uses the beauty of painting to contrast with the cruelty of reality, acknowledging art's imaginative autonomy while insisting on its ethical responsibility — calling for communication to replace slaughter, praying that humanity does not walk toward the abyss of self-destruction.
Project Story
March 15 to mid-April 2026. This series was created by the artist upon returning to Kunming after a self-healing journey through Laos and Thailand, resonating with other scrolls of Paradise on Earth made during his travels.
The loss of his parents was still fresh, the grief raw; simultaneously, crises in the external world were unfolding in succession — from the lingering trauma of the pandemic to continuous conflicts between the US and Iran, the flames of Gaza, and the Russia–Ukraine war — humanity's fate hangs in the balance.
Self-made charcoal · traditional mineral pigments · raw xuan paper