Yuqi Wang '24

In this group of four images, I mimicked the traditional Chinese ink painting style and layout with modern watercolor and papers. I wanted to emphasize some light colors while retaining the overall antique and detailed style.

I designed the images to have large negative spaces, which is a technique called Liu-Bai often used by ancient Chinese artists. The negative space provides endless potential and dynamics. Leaving blank can create a sense of uncertainty and indistinctness. People viewing the painting can fill the blank up with their imagination. Somehow, this type of perspective reminded me how children would stare at the tiniest things they found on the ground, a dry leaf or a cricket, amazed by their exquisiteness while everything else in their sight feels not exist. So I expressed the delicacy of nature’s details with this technique.

The depiction of landscape in traditional Chinese art is flat and lacks a point-perspective. I wanted to “pull” the landscape out of the paper into a 3-dimensional space. I built a cubic box and added layers of landscape paintings into it. The vertical pieces represent paper screens in ancient eastern rooms. The traditional screens separate and define spaces, but in my paintings, they extend the spaces with drawings that echo the landscapes outside them. I communicate the possibilities of nature by referencing different oriental styles when drawing the same item. For example, I painted the green-blue mountains with detailed lines referencing Song dynasty’s “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains”, while the claw-like waves are from Japanese Ukiyo-e “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”

This work depicts my favorite place in Beijing – the Zheng-Yi temple, a 500-year-old Beijing Opera theater. I went there countless times to view Beijing Opera performances before it was closed for financial reasons. This architecture situated deep inside a Hu-Tong, just like Beijing Opera in modern China, is a hidden ancient treasure that is underappreciated by the modern public. By emphasizing its astonishing details, I pay tributes to this beautiful architecture. By using nacreous paints and foggy black background I created an atmosphere of quietness and mystery. The design of ten iconic Chinese flowers and plants represents my wishes hoping this ancient art form will flourish again.