City Mountain

Picture Story

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.