“At that time, even Matisse was new to us.Take our school library, for example.  For the first twoyears, we were only allowed to see books on the lower floor, most of which were quite conservative, traditional and descriptive in a Russian styleor the art of the Renaissance. When you became a senior, you were allowed to visit the faculty library to see works by Matisse, Picasso and other modern artists. At that time I was interested in color, and liked Matisse and Mondrian, even though I didn’t understand Mondrian’sworks….

You can find influences from both Matisse and Mondrian in my final thesis work. Paul Klee came into my awareness later. The child-like style in his paintings made me think about why we did art the way we did. And whydid we have to receive this academic training? If you see art that looked this simple, but it’s not simple, when you thought about it, you’d debate within yourself.

Zheng Shengtian brought a lot of fresh air to the Academy and we became more rebellious. Up until then we were so controlled that wedidn’t know what to do when we had a little freedom, that kind of ‘aimless freedom’.”