Surreal photos come alive with real stories
Ma Liang is known for his use of surrealism in photography.
One of his works shows a woman holding a machine that bursts out with marshmallow clouds.
Another photo shows a postman who is ready to jump off a tall building with his bicycle, which has a parachute tied to it.
Ma spent three months on his work titled Journey to the West, hanging up 500 light bulbs, sculpting mud statues, making miniature props such as the helmet on the model crane's head, and assembling them to form intriguing compositions for his photo.
"The works I present to you do not manifest reality but trigger unlimited imagination instead," Ma says of the photos in his Journey to the West collection in 2008.
"I hope you will take them as puzzles that you can interpret in your own way. You don't have to understand my works. Just play with them and have fun."
Ma emphasizes that he doesn't regard his works as "bizarre" because they express his real emotions and insights into reality.
His latest album, My Confession, offers some insights into the emotions and thoughts behind the dazzling photos.
Debuting on the bookshelves in September, it includes more than 80 of Ma's masterpieces over the past decade. In it, the artist writes about his inspirations.
Ma also shares a treasure box of childhood anecdotes in his new publication.
One of the stories tells of Ma in primary school. One day, a mouse ran into the classroom causing students to scream and stamp their feet. Ma stamped his feet too because "everyone else was doing it" and in doing so, Ma trampled on the mouse and killed it.
"I will never forget the shame of being so silly as to claim a life," Ma writes.
He wraps up the story with a dream in which he became the mouse in a stampede.
"I later realized that everyone in this world is constantly running and no one can escape from reality," he concludes.
The artist gave up his successful career as an advertisement director eight years ago for photography to satisfy his idealistic and creative nature.
