Three days after she was born, parents of Liu Xinming were told by doctors that the girl would not see the world forever.

For years family members tried to pull Liu out of the darkness through various means. For example, they took her to the Xinmu Cinema, a small studio in Beijing where visually impaired people gather to "see" movies with the aid of volunteer narrators who tell the story and describe subjects mentioned in the films. It was there Liu heard that people like her could also learn painting.

With the help of her parents and volunteers, she began to know about colors by associating them to the emotions, the feelings of warmth or coldness, the ups and downs of the rhythms in music and the varying textures of objects. Based on her limited knowledge of the world and infinite imagination, Liu started to layer, to splash and even to pat colors directly with fingers on paper.