A woman' s exploration of life

The 30-meter-long passage leading to the main exhibition is set to engage viewers in a journey of "soul searching". [Photo provided to China Daily]

Cui Xiuwen was playing hopscotch as a child in one of her dreams. She also saw the many phases of her life－evolving from a newborn to a little girl and then an artist.

That dream is the inspiration behind Cui's ongoing exhibition, Light, at Peking University's Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. She has created several installations that take viewers on a journey through life, similar to how one progresses while playing a children's game.

The 46-year-old lives in Beijing and is considered a leading contemporary Chinese artist for embracing a feminine perspective in her figurative paintings and vanguard video works. Her recent creations, though, have become more abstract, engaging a broader scope of thinking in terms of religion and philosophy.

At her current show, Cui arranges the works in four sections, each exploring one dimension of a person's existence: physical being, heart, soul and destiny. She adopts a simple color scheme using such colors as red, green, yellow and blue, which she believes encapsulate enormous energies that enrich the vision of humans.

The installation Body at the museum's entrance invites people to become a part of the work. One can sit, lean or lie down on the colored cubes that are made of foam rubble and wrapped in flannel of varying sizes.