Shi Guowei is concerned with notions of historical and cultural traditions as they relate to current socio-political issues. Working mainly with photography, the artist is best known for his works that examine the complex issues that arise when traditional Chinese culture collides with more recent social, artistic, and political realities, both of China and beyond. Shi’s process of hand-coloring photographs is influenced by traditional hand painting techniques in China. Painters developed this traditional technique to create a heightened sense of depth, color, and realism behind each work. To create these works, the artist first took a digital black-and-white photograph of a landscape significant to him and then developed the print onto photographic paper. From memory, the artist finally applied paint, carefully and thoroughly by hand, to add color.