I believed very early that for an artist, it was particularly important to be individual, and another thing: an artist should transcend his function as a critical tool. An important function of art is to help you excavate feelings and a sense of mystery at a deeper level. This applies to any country, including China.

（Statements by the Artist, 2008)

For a long time, Liu Ye has been seeking an individual image that transcends reality, and reality does not just mean totalitarian political reality, but also means any kind of interference with and encroachment on individuality. When facing the newly formed conditions of art, his response has been to compare himself to other things, dissecting whether there are implications in the art of the individual of a disease shared with the trend. The result is that he has become aware of the necessity of taking a further step back towards the classics, that is, to place that ‘lightness’ and ‘transparence’ of his in a more distant time to weigh it again.

（Zhu Zhu, Double Fascination, 2007[Selected]）