IB Art showcase

As our lives in the 21st century are constantly packed with work, social events, and hustling in response to the external, we at most times fail to reflect on the internal that controls our actions unknowingly, ignoring our feelings. This diary records my mood over the span of a month in the form of colours and abstract flowing shapes.

In this series of digital drawings with Procreate, I intend to show the dilemma of involution--a situation where people desperately invest more time and energy in study to be able to compete against others, rather than for their own self-improvement. I drew sardines, which symbolise Chinese students in the process of involution, with cold saturated colours to create a bleak feeling which enhances my message of revealing its inhumanity.

Inspired by a song, I show the protagonist's loneliness and her attempt to fill her inner world by interacting with others. The candle symbolises the relationships that light up her life, but also the uncertainty of these relationships. I drew a monochrome image with a dark background to create a dramatic atmosphere, with cross-shaded and jagged lines to show the subject's turbulent mood.

When I stare into the horizon of the city where I live, I feel so small and helpless in-front of the giant, metallic buildings. I tried to recreate the sense of isolation and loneliness brought by architectural structures in urban life. Inspired by Tom Bennet’s movie-style monoprints, I used strong contrast of black and white to allude to horror movies. The perspective of the image is stretched vertically to create a depth in height, illustrating the shocking scale of the modern buildings.

This installation is presented as four oil paintings connected with coloured yarn. In this artwork, I want to communicate the connection or relationship between different people. These relationships could be either negative or positive, according to viewers imagination. In order to vague the identity and provide the audience more imagination, I decided to paint generic faces and therefore weaken the facial features so that they represent ‘everyman’.

When young, I dreamed about a world of my own with extra-terrestrial scenes - this was free and enjoyable but this childhood tendency is something that I’ve grown out of. I aim to recall this lost feeling through creating soft and dream-like textured work. Using the making-process to build the images reminds me of how I would build my fantasy world inside my mind. I use monochrome to create a sense of reminiscence, while my favourite colour red represents the warm, simple emotion from my childhood.

With the development of technology, humans seem to overtake mother nature – people have not yet recognised that they see more potted plants than free-grown trees. When travelling to Tibet, I saw an astonishingly beautiful view of Gandan Buddhist Temple amongst the human settlement which is a good example of humans and nature working together. Learning from the experience, I believe that true beauty exists in a harmonic balance of subjects, instead of one taking over the other.

Nowadays, with the parting of friends and the arrival of COVID, “contact” has become an important element in maintaining relationships. Using the photos of Tsubaki as a reference, each fish represents an individual. In gloomy and emotionless surroundings, it’s hard to stay connected to the world. During the pandemic when we are confined in our rooms, just like fish trapped in a bowl, I realised the charm of contact - the connecting lines between the fish symbolises the contact between people.

This installation is an assembled piece made of tissue paper, fallen leaves, wires and ropes (chairs used as foundation). The transparent umbrella on the top is a symbol of protection. The chair painted in metallic black, (representing human activities) reveals the excessive discharge of toxic chemicals which pervade everywhere. Tissue papers were scrunched to show violence of deforestation and wasting of resources. Leaves made by wires convey a contrast of indifference and the fragility of nature.

For my jewellery, I wanted to show a tree with different types of beautiful flowers. I created the jewellery so people can still wear beautiful flowers without picking and wearing the real thing. First, I tried to use clear lines to create the outline of the earrings and the jewellery rack by using wire. I then used super-light clay to create the main body of the earrings, with coloured chalk and pearls to embellish them. When creating the pieces, I was inspired by the delicate style of jewellery designer Tsumire.

In this artwork, I want to encourage people to have a healthy diet and eat less junk food. The hand grasping for the mountain of fast-food shows the addiction people have. Addiction to junk food can damage people’s health and lead to some serious diseases like obesity. The light-green poisonous background contrasts the colour of food and highlights the red package of junk food, making audience uncomfortable and creating a vibe of abnormality.