Tsingtau

Several years ago, history, nature and everyday life became my artistic concerns. What I have experienced in Tsingtau and Germany also prompted me to look at the classic motifs anew.This work is related to Tsingtau history as a German colony one century ago. Most materials on the history are still available today from German Federal Archives or unofficial sources. Unable to return to China during the pandemic, I gathered materials in the forms of photos, postcards and urban construction drawings, which provide a further glimpse into how they built a “splendid” colonial city. During the work, the images confusingly mingled with my memories of my hometown and the views I saw outside the window of my house in Germany. The hometown and foreign land, and past and present, got intertwined, evoking epic scenes in my mind, like an illusory memory. Hence I felt a great compulsion to paint them.