Lie Jie : Tales of palms

Li Jie loves nature and never pursue things persistently and urgently, but seeks the balance between people and people, between spirit and material, between art and life. He finds a proper place (low living cost, various kinds of people, relatively independent space, nobody’s interrupting) to settle down in the town by the edge of city. After settlement, in the day time he walks around the city and town doing things without any definite plan, but just observing, collecting and chatting. When everything goes well, he invites people to be painted on palms. At night he begins to sort out all his collecting, records of conversation, photos of hands, and notes he has taken. He doesn’t like the word “infuse”, because he once said: You coming and leaving, it’s better not to leave any traces. I once ridiculed his works the most environment protecting ones and he responded humorously: “I’ve no idea what I make is rubbish or not, so it’s better no to pollute the environment.”

When painting on the alive and perceivable life, painters will confront with the common people like him. The initial scene of painting disappears after washing the paints out on the participants’ palms, but one memorable and suspicious photo is left behind. Li Jie loves such kind of pub very much----