DESIGN NAME: Qin
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Graphic Arts
INSPIRATION: As a designer from China living in the United States, I have sought to integrate my training in contemporary design with my personal and cultural identity. This has come through an examination of different media and technological approaches. This process has led me to a series of digitally produced design pieces that examine my own Chinese pictorial tradition. These works have also allowed me an alternative approach to understanding The Natural within my practice.
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Kaidi Mao's examination of the aesthetic and intellectual tradition of Chinese landscape painting has enabled him to understand the connection between classical Chinese painters and their natural environments. To explore such painting's relationship to nature in a contemporary context, Mao has used today's technology to produce digital images inspired by the traditions of China.
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: These posters/graphic arts can be displayed physically and digitally, in a gallery setting or in a home setting.
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: The project started in September 2019, finished in May 2020 in Los Angeles.
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: The initial images are from photography, then digitally created using tools like Photoshop, Cinema 4D and Procreate.
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: There are two sizes for this poster series: 24 inches x 36 inches, and 24 inches x 30 inches
TAGS: Art, poster, Taoism, culture, landscape, painting
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: This project is a pictorial reinterpretation of Chinese painters' use of nature to communicate the Taoist notion that the whole planet is permeated by invisible Tao, "the Way of the cosmos, which is evident in nature." Mao has titled this project Qin. Qin, comes from the Chinese word, which means "to permeate", "to seep into". This project allows different cultures, concepts and methods to seep together. The character Qin consists of two parts: the left represents water, and the right represents the heart. Heart can be interpreted as the depth of one's feelings, and when combined with water, expresses something that comes from one's innermost being. Qin explores the aesthetic depth with which Chinese culture responds to, reveres, and honors the natural environment by reexamining pictorial traditions using contemporary digital image production. It also serves as an expression of the connection felt by a producer of such imagery with the underlying concept of Tao that inexpressibly permeates universal being in the Chinese tradition.
CHALLENGE: The biggest challenge of this project is to visually communicate this East Asian worldview to international viewer, especially under the current political environment.
ADDED DATE: 2021-03-31 18:56:40
TEAM MEMBERS (1) :
IMAGE CREDITS: Kaidi Mao, 2020.
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