One person, Li Songsong, "The Section of Experimental Art at the 14th National Art Exhibition"

While experiments of piling thick layers of pigments onto the canvas have exceeded the weight limits of frames and canvas, the artist, at the beginning, has accidentally used aluminum sheets as suitable replacements for convenience, as they are lighter, stronger than the canvas.

Since the large installation “Big Container,” completed four years ago, the artist began to use the stainless or normal steel sheets to replace aluminum sheets. He has bent, welded them together in the shape of the replica of a famous public memorial. Then the artist covers the surfaces of these sheets with heavy color pigments, with only a reflective strip unpainted. Therefore, the steel sheets and pigments both sculptural representations of object, and painting objects hidden inside the sculptural representations.

In this work, the aluminum sheets function both as the surface of the painting and structural materials. The unpainted aluminum sheets and aluminum modules covered in heavy pigments, together with steel scaffolding are used to build a round tunnel for one person to go through alone. The way the artist uses aluminum sheets and pigments reflect its duality as both the painting and sculpture. The exterior of the aluminum tunnel is transparent, reflective of its surroundings, as a flawless industrial product. Inside the tunnel, however, the color pigments of the aluminum sheets and modules create an obscure, tacky visual impression that has a heavy visual impact on the viewer/walker’s mind. Perhaps there is no other works that have emphasized the materiality of these materials stronger than this work. Conventional viewing experiences propose a distance between the painting and the viewer, as the viewer stands outside the painting gazing at it. This work, as the viewer goes through a painterly tunnel, creates the experiences of going through a painting, which parallels to peeping into one’s internal feelings.