'Staring from 1990s, China has been experiencing a phase of unprecedented rapid economic development. Enormous changes have been taking place in economy, social sciences, humanities, cultures, mentality and ideology, almost every corner of the society. But we don’t know what all these changes will bring to us ultimately.

What we can feel is that on the daily basis the cities are [expanding], the buildings are getting taller and taller, with more and more skyscrapers. On the contrary, the traditional houses that carried our memories are less and less. Cities are losing their distinctiveness, when the new buildings become more identical with each other. Everyday, people are hurrying in a hustling and bustling world, which demonstrates an entirely new space, a new lifestyle, a new time-space concept, and a new era, all of which make people feel like they are living in a virtual reality, and therefore got lost.

The series of works is entitled Reflection in Water. The schemata of these works are based upon the combination of urban architectures in those Chinese cities which have experienced fast urbanizing rate, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In creating these works, I intentionally made copies of those identical architectural groups, and created a huge landscape which can expand infinitely based on the size of space available. I believe that we are living in an era in which the cities are developed with absolute rate of economic development with the ultimate goal, while creativity is conveniently ignored. When trying to construct the so-called “international metropolitans”, the same city model is being replicated over and over again… The model is made in white ceramic. Combined with light projection, it creates a hallucinating and mirage-like effect, which keeps the realistic life at a certain distance.'
(Text given by Liu Jianhua to Asia Art Archive in 2013)