My relationship to Chinese art began at a distance. Growing up in Toronto, my only exposure to it was secondhand —fleeting glimpses of shan shui paintings in the background of 90s period dramas broadcast by TVB, a Hong Kong television network. These were not works I encountered in galleries or classrooms; they existed for me only as half-formed images on a screen, disconnected from any deeper context or history.

In 2017, this curiosity led me to a public library, where I encountered shan shui painting directly for the first time. Shan shui (山水)—literally "mountain-water"—is a centuries-old tradition of Chinese landscape painting executed in brush and ink. Far from representational, these works are meditations: the painter renders not the world as it is, but as it is contemplated, filtered through memory, philosophy, and feeling.

This discovery became the foundation for a body of work exploring shan shui's compositional structures, elemental vocabulary, and colour sensibilities—pieces that functioned as both homage and inquiry, visual records of my shifting identity as a Chinese-Canadian and the lived experiences shaping it at the time. Though this series has since concluded, it marked a turning point: the questions it raised about tradition, inheritance, and representation continue to inform and shape my practice today.

This body of work was realized through acrylic and oil pastel on canvas and digital media.

For inquiries regarding available works, please contact via email.