肖红：对，当时更突出技术问题。

　　Xiao Hong: Right, technique was more important to me at that time.

　　赵力：敦煌壁画的颜色非常丰富，但“供养人”更多是黑白灰的微妙变化。在油画颜料、色阶变化方面，你是不是有着对中国绘画语言的诉求?近现代有很多人西行敦煌发掘民族根源性的东西，比如吴作人、董希文的油画都因此发生很大变化。去了敦煌，你的油画表现是不是出现了一种新的变化?

　　Zhao Li: The color of Dunhuang fresco is very profound, but “the Providers” shows more refined variations of black, white and gray colors. Do you pursue a language of Chinese painting in terms of oil colors and color level variation? Many artists went west to Dunhuang to discover national origins in Modern Times, such as Wu Zuoren and Dong Xiwen, and their oil paintings changed a lot as a result. After you went to Dunhuang, was there any new variation that appeared in your oil painting expression?

　　肖红：当时主要是被样式打动了。因为对油画材料熟悉，觉得油画也能表现这种肌理或者敦煌残破的感觉，就尝试着这么做。

　　Xiao Hong: I was moved mostly by the style at that time. I was familiar with oil painting materials and thought that this kind of Dunhuang texture and sense of decaying could also be expressed through oil painting, so this is what I tried to do.

　　赵力：85年到89年在艺术界出现很多画抽象、画材料的实验艺术家，你对这个流派有什么评价，他们和你有什么关系?

　　Zhao Li: There appeared many artists who experimented with abstract paintings and materials in the art circle during 1985 to 1989; what is your comment on this school, and what is the relationship between you and them?

　　肖红：当时我在内蒙上学，妥木斯先生的油画借鉴了很多汉像砖的东西，对我们有很大启发。去了敦煌后就边尝试边画。之前也受过八五新潮的影响，以及全国学文艺复兴前期那股思潮的影响。文艺复兴前期也是借鉴壁画，我看到东方壁画，觉得东方壁画也很有意思。

　　Xiao Hong: I was studying at university in Inner Mongolia at that time; Mr. Tuo Musi used many pictorial stones of Han Dynasty for reference in his oil paintings, which inspired us greatly. So I began to experiment on painting after I arrived in Dunhuang. The 85’ New Wave Art Movement and countrywide trend of learning from early Renaissance both influenced me then. It was also popular to take fresco as reference in early Renaissance; and having seen Eastern frescoes, I thought they were also very interesting.