The Path, from the series Time Immemorial

At first glance, The Path seems to be a hazy and evocative landscape, reminiscent of the serene painted vistas of China’s Song dynasty (960–1279). However, a closer look reveals that the natural forms in the image are composed of details from photographs of contemporary urban environments, with rubble piles, dilapidated apartment buildings, and distant skyscrapers.

A solitary figure stands in the center of the image, evoking the traditional Chinese motif of a small, lone person in a vast landscape. These figures, with whom the viewer may identify, are usually shown as if in contemplation, observing the harmony of the natural world. Here, however, the scene is much more ominous as the man stares into his ramshackle surroundings. In this context, the contemporary ruin reveals the physical consequences of urbanization, construction, pollution, and demolition, with the isolated man embodying alienation, dislocation, and despair. The sense of the rapidity of modernization and rejection of the past is heightened by the ancient religious sculptures being compressed and buried beneath the debris.