After I completed my first series “Thousand-Armed Guanyin” in 2015, I never had any inspiration for the second series. My good friend Fan Jingwen (photography curator) came to my studio and we chatted. I revealed my anxiety about creation. She told me to cherish these noble days when I could stay alone in the studio and daydream and think, because there would be no more days like this in my life. After she left, I felt relieved. As usual, every day in my studio, I would light a stick of incense in the incense burner, recite the Heart Sutra or copy a passage from the Buddhist scriptures, and wait for my mind to enter a state of emptiness and calm before I began sketching. But one day, while observing the smoke rising from the incense burner, inspiration struck me, and I began to create a series that would never end: “The Zen Meditation of Incense.” I sketched the images that emerged in my mind in a sketchbook and then carved them onto a wooden board with a carving knife. The process of carving wood is very similar to the process of slowly calming down and examining my inner self while copying Buddhist scriptures. I chose this material. I took photos of the draft and the finished board and showed them to Fan Jingwen, who also reads Buddhist scriptures daily. She was willing to participate in this project, giving each piece a three-character Chinese title that captured the essence of the work. And so we collaborated on this project. Chinese: Incense Burner. English: Incense of Zen Meditation.

2015年我在完成第一个系列“千手观音”之后，始终没有第二个系列的任何灵感，范静雯（摄影策展人）我的好朋友来我画室，我们聊天，我透露出创作的焦虑，她说要珍惜这段一个人呆在画室空想思考的高贵日子，也是此生再没有这样的日子了。她离开后我心情释然，常规每日到了画室，我会点上一支线香插在香炉里，念一遍心经或抄写一篇经文，等脑子里进入放空平静状态，再开始画创作草图，这一天我观察着香炉里的香飘出的烟雾，突然灵感来了就创作一个远不结束的系列“香的禅修，我把脑子里冒出的画面画在草稿薄里，再用刻刀刻在木板上，刻木头的过程与抄经时慢慢趋于平静，审视内心的过程很类似，我选择这样的材料，我将草稿和木板完成的样子拍给范静雯看，她也每天会阅读佛经，她愿意参与这个项目，每张创作她给出三个字的中文作为提炼作品内涵的名字，就这样我们一起合作了这个项目。中文：香炉。英文名：禅修的香。