M: Let's start with the origin of the exhibition title, "Hazy Blue". How did this highly poetic color imagery become connected to your creative work?

D: "Hazy Blue" is a specific color concept, but it also refers to looking back on certain memories and emotions.

The title comes from the name of one piece in the portrait series featured in this exhibition. When this particular work was first conceived, it already had the title Your Eyes Hold a Sea, a Smoke-Blue Hue. This is a line from the novel Hazy Blue. I came across this book in the library when I was a middle school student at the Wenzhou Art School. Reading such books was very popular at the time, and I was just following the trend. I've long forgotten the actual content of the book, but for some reason, this line has stayed with me all these years.

After finishing this painting, I found an old copy on Kongfz.com. While flipping through its yellowed pages, smelling the musty odor, I was instantly transported back to that second-floor library at Wenzhou Art School. The feeling was both familiar and distant.

This sensation evokes feelings of loneliness, disorientation, and even a sense of fragmentation. In daily life, I'm not entirely sure where these complex feelings originate. But I clearly know that this feeling can be triggered by a certain object or a specific moment and can linger for a while. Usually, these are also the times when inspiration strikes most frequently. During these periods, I frantically search for any and all imagery I can capture. As a painter, I'm quite adept at seizing these visual moments. This is likely how such imagery connects with and fuels my creative process.

D: The biggest change and challenge this year has been the shift in my identity. I spent a very long time in school; until 2024, I was always a student. Being accustomed to that student identity, detaching from it has taken a considerable amount of time. This process brought about a lot of unease, and I even felt anxiety and powerlessness over this discomfort. My mental state varied through different stages: from idealism, to anxiety, to inner conflict, to gradually becoming calmer, and eventually to this point of reflection. These feelings from different phases helped shape the visuals in my work and consequently led to new ideas and the creation of this new series.

The formation of these outcomes wasn't deliberately designed, as I've always hoped my work would emerge naturally from within me. It stems from my varying perceptions of the world at different stages. It doesn't matter if they aren't perfect; at least they are genuine. Authenticity is very important to me.

M: The imagery of your hometown runs through your work. For you, Wenzhou seems to have transcended the simple concept of "hometown"; it's more like a unique "local grammar" – the stemmed bowls as symbolic dowry items, the auspicious meanings in dialect homophones, all become the implicit framework of your creations. When transforming these elements, so rich with personal memory and regional attributes, into a visual language, how do you balance "local character" with "universality," allowing audiences outside the Wenzhou context to also empathize with the emotional weight behind the work?

D: Although I am a native of Wenzhou, I came to Beijing for school at the age of 15. So, most of my feelings and impressions of Wenzhou are from before high school, or from summers and Chinese New Year holidays.

The works in the Home Feast series have the most direct relationship with Wenzhou, and I am very fond of this series. From the initial research, to sketching, to completing the works, and finally to presenting them in the exhibition space and communicating with viewers, each step gave me a deep sense of belonging and a feeling of being profoundly connected and bound to Wenzhou.

For a long time after leaving Wenzhou, the term "Wenzhou Native" was merely a label about my identity. When I was younger, I didn't particularly like this designation because people had certain "preconceptions" about Wenzhou people – a 'biased' view in quotation marks, not necessarily negative, but rather a one-sided understanding. However, this series of works has allowed me to explore using my hometown as a narrative method, to seek out both remembered and forgotten stories about Wenzhou, and to present a Wenzhou that people don't commonly recognize.

In the Wenzhou context, the red of the stemmed bowl itself carries the wish of "prosperity and steady advancement". When I infuse this stable local symbol with thoughts about memory through color, it effectively completes a transformation – one that speaks to how we relate to our own past.

M: In the stemmed bowl series, the vessels, food, and homophone meanings form a triple narrative: the bowl symbolizes "stability," dried fish signifies "prominence," and duck tongue means "making money." This creative logic of transforming everyday objects into cultural symbols is very interesting. When selecting these food subjects, do you prioritize their folkloric meaning, or the emotional connection from your personal life experiences? For instance, is the context of the New Year's Eve feast a more core starting point for creation than the homophone implication?

D: The actual starting point for this creation was my parents. More than the scene of the New Year's Eve feast itself, the preparatory scene before the feast moves me more deeply: My father very carefully, with both hands, takes the stemmed bowls out of their box, washes them, and ensures they are placed in an absolutely safe spot, even though these items aren't particularly expensive. My mother starts a day in advance, having the whole family brainstorm the dishes for the feast, writing them down. On New Year's Eve, she heads to the market early in the morning with her small list to buy the freshest ingredients. She's busy all day, then arranges the dishes very meticulously, even taking the time to carve carrot slices into little flowers. These busy scenes, full of noise and chatter, are incredibly warm. They are also scenes I often recall when I'm not in Wenzhou. The tall-footed bowl is a key participant in this activity.

Food is a departure point. When selecting the foods, I wanted them to be consistent with Wenzhou's dietary habits and way of life. They carry the taste of home, the taste of my mother's cooking, connecting directly to me.

M: In your Figures series, many scenes resemble frozen cinematic moments—full of narrative potential yet devoid of clear resolution. Are you intentionally refusing to provide narrative closure to maintain a state of emotional suspension? Do you hope that, through this approach, each viewer can draw upon their own memories and emotions to participate in the final completion of the story?

D: This connects to our earlier discussion about "color as a memory filter." The works in my portrait series are fictional scenes constructed from reality—composed of countless blurred, fragmented, and even emotionally re-edited moments. They are not drawn from direct observation.

The process itself, from transforming a sketch into a color study, then into a detailed drawing, and finally transferring it to silk, spans a significant amount of time. This duration stands in contrast to the fleeting, instantaneous nature of the original scenes I seek to capture. What I can record is never a complete story, but rather the sensation of that story.

Therefore, I consciously employ this "frozen moment" narrative method to create open-ended stories that continue to unfold within the frame. I aim to invite the viewer to become a participant in the narrative. I believe different people, with their unique life experiences and sensitivities, will feel differently when facing the same painting. Even the same person may have different interpretations at various stages of their life. I want to leave the narrative interface of the story within the painting open for the audience to engage with and co-author.

M: If we place your recent works, such as Your Eyes Hold a Sea, a Smoke-Blue Hue, alongside earlier pieces like The Sunset Belongs to No One, we can observe a fairly clear stylistic evolution. What has been the key factor driving this change?

D: Many people remark that my recent work appears more relaxed and free compared to before. However, this wasn't a conscious design while I was painting; it's likely that I'm simply less hard on myself now.

I used to be very strict with my work, obsessed with rendering every color patch perfectly, not allowing a single stroke to fall out of place. I would begin with a precise preconception of the final result, and the process was a linear march towards that predetermined outcome. Now, my approach to painting is much more relaxed. While I still start with an overall plan, I no longer confine myself strictly to that initial vision. I even intentionally employ techniques to disrupt and break apart the initially composed image.

D: I am open to experimenting with new possibilities—whether in subject matter, narrative approaches, or visual effects—while I will undoubtedly continue to delve deeper into the theme of my hometown. The motif of "hometown" is vast and challenging for me. The tall-footed bowl was just a very small entry point.

There is so much more about Wenzhou that I wish to study and understand on a deeper level, moving beyond superficial impressions. What I hope to construct is not a "Wenzhou" that can be found on a map or through social media, but rather a "spiritual homeland" for modern individuals, especially for those like me who live away from their roots.