A Scroll of Paper
 
Since I left my home town Changde for University in Changsha at the age of 16, I have never again used “straw paper tissues”. They were made from straw fibres and had quite a rough texture. They were used in the most mundane but private part of daily life.
 
The paper we use every day in cities has become more and more refined, and I had assumed that the straw tissues no longer even existed. When in 2000 I again found myself holding a roll of straw paper tissues, I felt as if I was stroking the past.
 
It travelled with me, crossing mountains and rivers until we arrived in Switzerland. I look at it as if I was looking at myself, I paint it as if I was painting a self-portrait. Once every year until the end of life.