2019
Medium: paper, reed, uv coating
Dimension variable
By employing the Chinese traditional kite and lantern-making techniques, I created forms that resemble life in nature. This is based on my experience of the state of constant change in identity. In the process of growth, a temporary stage of evolution like these cocoon forms, presents a state of new life start and reborn and reincarnation. It is a self that adapts changes and growths yet awares and protected from the harsh environment. I draw my experiences as a Chinese immigrant in Canada, broadening that reality to encompass the human condition of prefectural change and growth.
These forms are made in very simple material restraint, but they are complex in their geometry, and also have the translucent delicacy, and possessing of tensile and internal strength. To create the work, I first make the reed skeleton, then apply paper. I cut paper into small pieces according to the shape of these openings. Then I glue the paper on. Finally, I apply a few layers of different coating to tighten and protect the paper. The reed has its own inner tension, its own temperament, no matter how perfectly round or straight I try to form them, after a while, it relaxes and deforms in some ways. Therefore, each little circle I made has its own eccentricity.
Each sculpture is suspended from a motor that rotates slowly. The movement animates the work and suggests planets and underwater world.