Having studied Song-dynasty painting practices, the artist moved to Arkansas in 1986, where he continued to paint in watercolor and ink, using his scroll-style works to depict narratives about industrialization and its attendant environmental destruction. Often described as disturbing and fantastical, Ji’s work is inspired by the ghost stories his grandfather told him as a child, growing up on a collective farm. For the artist, however, ghosts function as a metaphor and means of satirizing human problems.