A many layered affair

Due to its special nature, lacquerware achieves its best levels of brightness, smoothness and robustness after two to six years, he explains.

Growing up in Dafang, Gao was intrigued by lacquerware as a child, and watched his father harvest raw lacquer from the tall trees around the house, which he used to make exquisitely patterned tobacco boxes.

After signing up for painting training for farmers in 1985, Gao was recommended to a nearby state-owned lacquerware plant four years later.

Under the instruction of senior artisans, he developed a better understanding of Dafang lacquerware and made inroads in the traditional craft, which was named a form of national intangible cultural heritage in 2008.

He says he realized then that Dafang lacquerware was part of the Yi cultural wealth and was worth thoroughly studying to ensure its essence was fully preserved and carried forward.

"Since the 1990s, I have traveled to the Taijiang, Danzhai, and Guanling (Bouyei and Miao autonomous county) ethnic regions in Guizhou, to sketch and collect materials, and draw inspiration from art forms like oil painting, printmaking, and paper-cutting," Gao says.

Those efforts have given rise to a series of pieces featuring distinctive ethnic elements, such as the night dances and totems of the ancient Yi people.

Gao takes pride in the fact that many of his pieces have been publicly displayed in China and abroad.

As he got to the bottom of the craft's traditional techniques, he realized that they had to keep pace with the times.

"Traditional craftsmanship is constrained by the conditions of the times and requires a lot of labor, making costs relatively high. So it is necessary to improve traditional techniques," Gao says.

But maintaining a delicate balance between innovation and tradition is key, he adds.