Boundaries
Boundaries
邊界
Qiyang Zhou
"Overlaying Halo" Photography, Canon 60D Xiamen, China Aug, 2018
I always love to climb to the highest of buildings and contemplate upon the city stretched below my eyes. The bustling city noises of Shenzhen, the squeaking sounds of its complex transportation networks. We are the hollow men. And the millions of extracting lights brilliant, illuminating a crossword game of the city puzzle. The city was a place tangled with lost souls. Where was its boundaries? It was a monster relentlessly devouring more space, more lands in the suburb, and in the people's minds. I realized that it had no boundaries. The very nature of boudaries was vague, meant to be broken by stronger forces. I included these photographies in my portfolio because I felt the city is a part of me - I am like my very city of Shenzhen, a post-modern hybrid, integrating old and new. I ventured between the ancient and modern, between different cultures. I, like the city itself, jumped between boundaries.
"Prelude I. Rules of the Red" Photography, Canon 60D Shenzhen, China October, 2018
"Prelude II. Glass Boxes" Photography, Canon 60D Shenzhen, China October, 2018
镡芊 [Le poète i9ii] Picasso smiled at me. The maze in front of us grew into a monster of rectilinear and curvilinear shapes. "Solve it," said Picasso. "The maze of the poet. Le Poete." He laughed. "It is a multi-angle view of the poet. It was moving. Lines. Planes. Lights. Colors. In order to solve it, you should move before I do." "Picasso presents multiple views of each object, as if he had moved around it, and synthesizes them into a single compound image. The fragmentation of the image encourages a reading of abstract rather than representational form. The imagined volumes of figure and object dissolve into non-objective organizations of line, plane, light, and color. Interpenetrating facets of forms floating in a shallow,
indeterminate space are defined and shaded by luminous, hatched, almost Neo-Impressionist brushstrokes. The continuity of certain lines through these facets creates an illusion of a system of larger planes that also float in this indefinite space yet are securely anchored within an architectonic structure." --Lucy Flint, Guggenheim Museum
Inspired by Picasso's analytical painting, Le Poete i9ii was an experiment on moving spaces and angles. When I transfered the twodimensional painting into a three-dimensional model, extending in the y-axes and the x-axes, it became a game of space. As the complex work of art gradually simplified into lines, lights and shadows, the structure appeared. There were endless possibilities. The
"Maze of the Poet" 15.8''x11.6'' Black cardboard, paper 2018
"Le Poete - Simplification Processes" 7.1''x7.5'' Ink on Paper 2018
overall appearance of the structure alters as the red string moves randomly. The string controls the structure, and the structure also supports the string. The red string acted as a blurry, alterable boundary for the hard structure. Since Picasso viewed his subject from multi-angles, I designed Le Poete as a tribute to him. The poet moves, picking up the red string, moving the shape, facade, and contour of Le Poete with him, creating a more accurate imitation of the orinal work.
"Le Poete - Simplification Processes" (Left) 9.2''x6.9''x6.5'' White paper, wood sticks 2018
"Le Poete - Improvisations" (Right) 7.5''x8.1''x6.9'' White paper, red strings 2018
ć•…ĺœ’ [Chinese Garden]
"Vertical Garden" 7.6''x3.5'' Ink on paper 2018
"Connecting Teahouses" 8.0''x5.9''x5.9'' White paper, wood sticks, wood board 2018
The bridges were sole connections between different tea houses. Beneath them were the exquisite little rivers that rolled with the bubbles of gold fish. They share an old soul.
"Vertical Chinese Garden" 8.4''x6.4''x7.1'' White paper, wood sticks, wood board 2018
Inspired by the tea houses and sheltered bridges in traditional Chinese gardens, I imagined how they would be like if they were built in a vertical plane instead of horizontally. I then transformed the spaces bounded by the altered planes of paper into little cells of secured space. The inner connection remained, and I added exterior pathways so that the connections between little cells will be clearer. The inner connections were now passages inside a space, and the bridges outside the cells were the connections of separated spaces. In the final model, I transformed the exterior branches of connection into true bridges with fences and canopies. These bridges serve as the passage ways between different "teahouses" for different usages. The columns for support rose the teahouses high above the ground, and passage ways were present to deliver people up to the houses from the ground. In this sense, boundaries were strictly separated, but were also connected. The erecting columns keep the inner ground and exterior space separate. The boundaries were unclear, but as well clear at the same time. I learned through this project that new design can draw inspirations from ancient wisdoms. Architecture should be designed to fit the indigenous ecology and cultures.
"Etudes - Vertical Gardens" 7,8''x8.0'' Ink on paper 2018
ç‹‚ćƒł
"Skeleton of a Rhapsody" 12.0''x8.4''x11.9'' Photography of Model 2018
[The Mobius Rhapsody]
"Twist and Turn" 7.8''x10.5'' Ink on paper 2018
Endless samsara was the end. Boundless borders were the bounds. We tried to explore every corner, but the ring leads us back. Back to our genesis. Our origin. We had reached out for a galloping universe. The birth of stars. The Mobius strip was a two dimensional shape curled to pursuit a three demensional space. If one draw a line along the strip, it would ultimately return to its origin. The single continuous curve demonstrates that the Mobius curve has only one boundary. I imagine this project as a skeleton hovering in
mid-air. It was a gradually filling up of space, with several mobius rings binding together, and then later filled up in a three-dimensional space in forms of spheres. So I combined several rings together, and randomly created different forms of space. However, the first attempts to manufacture a flowing space was hollow and unclear - the boundaries had thousands of variantions, and fractions were not connected with each other tightly. I decided to fill up the crevices between. Using curves, I bounded the mobius ring complex inside a chrysalis, and found elegance in its twisting but stretched appearance.
"Shadows that Lurked" 12.0''x8.4''x11.9'' Paper, wood sticks, wood board 2018
"Mobius Rhapsody - Final" 12.0''x8.4''x11.9'' Paper, wood sticks, wood board 2018
"Mobius Rhapsody - Details" 12.0''x8.4''x11.9'' Photography of Model 2018
�鄉 [Nostalgia]
"Nostalgia" - Top View (Upper) 23.6''x17.7''x6.3'' Gypsum, wood stick, tree branches 2017
"Nostalgia" - Details (Lower) 23.6''x17.7''x6.3'' Gypsum, wood stick, tree branches 2017
"Nostalgia" was a person's own reminiscence. It was one's private contemplations - the hidden weaknesses, the greatest agony, the longings of loved ones. In this installation, I crafted a gypsum silhouette of a face out of a self-made card-board mould, and built up a threedimensional face using wood sticks. The tangling branches of Chinese willows upon the right side were the streams of different thought, spiraling into thin air.
"Nostalgia" 23.6''x17.7''x6.3'' Gypsum, wood stick, tree branches 2017
[Other Works]
Lonely Planet is a series of postcard-size watercolor works that drew inspirations from personal relationships. Underneath the coverage of huge edifices, people behave differently under different spying glasses.The steel bars, the glowing neon lights, floating structures of cement are all elements of the bustling city. People meet and part, and return to their initial states of solitudes. It is a lonely planet, but we are progressing until we are one.
"Lonely Planets" (Series) 6.7''x3.9'' (x8) Watercolor on paper 2017-2018
I wanted to convey the spirit of freedom through this two oil-paints. Both of them are inspired by renowned indie pop singer Lana del Rey, with her retro, sadcore hums and lyrics. Through her beautifully written lyrics, I recognised freedom as in various poetry and novels. Both figures in my paintings are laid-back, enjoying the present with closed eyes, meditating somehow. I used soft strokes to convey the sense of peace and calmness, as well as contasts of low-saturated colors to show their vibrant minds and soul. "Who are you? Are you in touch with all of your darest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you're free to experience them? I have. I am crazy, but I am free."
"Mint Mojito" (Left) 15.6''x10.2'' Oil on canvas 2018
"Banana Milkshake" (Right) 15.6''x9.6'' Oil on canvas 2018
The human heart was divided into different parts - the frenzy, the craze, the melancholy, the love, the evil, the madness, the anger, the despise. Will you cry out in long-depressed darkness? Will you escape the world that doesn't comprehend you and dive into a forever wonderland? I will. And the movie Cloud Atlas offered me this brand new view. Cloud Atlas was not about samsara, but about how people break through conventions in the progressiosn of human-beings. How we seek for truth and freedom, no matter how societies transformed across centuries and centuries. There is a hidden strength that drive all of us into the same direction - a brave new world. That strength is the will to protest against the mundane regulations, and to break all rules.
"Orchestra of the Mind" (Left) 23.6''x31.5'' Oil on canvas 2017
"I Love You Just a Little Too Much" (Right) 15.7''x27.6'' Oil on canvas 2018
"Pumpkin Seeds" 8.6''x13.3'' Charcoal on paper 2018
"Echo of Sins" 15.7''x27.6'' Ink on paper 2017
"Corn in a Basket" 9.3''x12.5'' Charcoal on paper 2018
"The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else - but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll." - "The Ballad of the Sad CafĂŠ", Carson McCullers I witnessed this scene in a Museum in Rome. It was a crowded hall, of which the passageway was suddenly blocked by the museum staffs. They were taking new photographs of the museum collections. It was as if in a movie: people swarming beside you, flashlights tickling your eyes, statues with mysterious smiles fixed in time. Will we fall in love with a statue from the ancient times? Were there boundaries between the present and the past?
"A Conversation Between Old and New" Photography, Canon 60D Rome, Italy Jan, 2018
"Red Reveries" Photography, Canon 60D Beijing,China Aug, 2017
"Rainbow Velvets" Photography, Canon 60D Rome, Italy Jan, 2018