I began the "Fill" series in 1997 in the United States, portraying myself as an open box in these ten paintings. During their composition, I was occupied with my Chinese heritage, western influence, and the interaction between the two. While living in and out of Hong Kong and California, I filled my "boxes" with the colors of life. They changed every day; sometimes mixing together, and at other time rejecting one another. The colors are glazed layer upon layer, using traditional glazing material and liquin as media. Some colors are translucent, while others are covered and submerged. Yet they all build on one another, filling and refilling my boxes. I used green, yellow and orange as my primary colors. Emerald green is the mother tone, reflecting the ancient traditions and landscapes of the Orient. Yellow and orange are adopted Californian colors, reminiscence of the state’s vast desert and plentiful sunshine. Fill 1 is the earliest work; the bright orange Californian sun shone on the lush emerald green. Fill 10 is the most recent, its colors subdued and blended. These are open boxes. They invite the exotic and the mundane, change and conformity. They hold and spill ideas, dreams and experience…They traveled with me from one part of the world to another for four years. Life is an open box.