Liang Zi was born in Xi'an, Shanxi Province, China in 1980. He represents tree stumps with bare, sawn-off branches against a pure white background in his paintings. Zi has an impeccable ability to replicate onto canvas the most intricate details visible on the bark of the tree as well as tree rings. His paintings reaches a level of hyper-realism with the precision of his colour tones and brush strokes.

In his paintings, tree stumps are gnarled and barren, building up a feeling of harsh winter; at the same time, Zi is able to maintain the inner warmth and life of the tree, making it seem complete often even without the branches. This represents the gradual isolation and insulation of modern man from family and society in a world of rapid, impersonal communication, symbolized by the loss of tree branches that create a canopy of interconnected relationships.