series Camouflage

Chameleon has the unique property of changing hues to match the color of the surroundings for self-protection. LIU BOLIN is a chameleon!

LIU BOLIN is a young Beijing based artist who explores the human nature and animal instincts which features chinese citizens painted to blend into their surroundings. The subjects are covered head to toe in paint camouflaging themselves in front of the chineses, flag, billboard, etc.

Sometimes I feel fortunate that I was not born in the 1950s. The people in this generation experienced everything. They had many common ecperiences: having a deep feeling to Chairman Mao, cultural revolution, unnormal education, never going to college, obtaining iron rice bowl but meeting laid-off wave, cancelling to distribute houses, starting to buy houses, children going to school at their own expense and so on. Can merely the strength of culture and tradition influence the entire generation’s thinking styles.

Now, in the real material world, the world views of different people’s are also different. Each person chooses his/her own way in the process of contacting outside world. I choose to merge myself into the environment. Saying that I am disappeared in the environment, it would be better to say that the environment has licked me up and I can not choose active and passive relationship.

In the environment of emphasizing cultural heritage, concealment is actually no place to hide.

-by LIU BOLIN