Chinese artist Liu Ji lives, works, and teaches painting in Dalian, China. Although many of Liu’s works seem to draw from Western artists as diverse as Giorgio de Chirico, Rene Magritte, and Edvard Munch, the artist has stated that he has been greatly influenced by such Chinese artists as Bada Hermit and Ren Bonian, as well as Chinese poetry. Many of the artist’s works portray figures who are either alone or in states of loneliness, pitted against the elements or caught by forces beyond their control. Liu paints dystopian environments which nonetheless hint at signs of hope. His saturated color palette tempers the dark overtones of many of his works, giving them a lush, painterly appearance. Liu seeks to depicts feelings and situations that are beyond those of “ordinary life” and to give viewers a sense of situations and circumstances that might be unfamiliar to them. Liu derives much of his inspiration from his daily life in Dalian, but says that it is important for him! to visit Tibet once a year to get a different perspective on his life. It is this change in perspective that he seeks to convey through his art.