Born in 1982, Guo Hongwei graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2004. He promptly let go of the shackles of conventional artisan approaches after receiving rigorous, systematic training at the institute, and began searching for inspirations from his life experience.

At long last, Guo found his Muse in childhood photos of his youth and his family. Between 2005 and 2007, Guo produced a series of oils that he copied from photos. He first dripped turpentine onto the canvas, and as the thinner started to feather, the silhouette of the figure also blurred, until the image was dissolved into a haze.

Managing the different diffusivity of the turpentine and water, the artist explores the visual balance betwe...