The Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University (AADTHU) has selected some of the best artworks and designs by its postgraduates who are sharing their vision and art with the world through the 2022 Online Graduation Exhibition.
The AADTHU 2022 online graduation exhibition is currently underway. To view the online exhibition, visit https://exhibition.ad.tsinghua.edu.cn/2022/.
Wu Qian: "Growth Fades Away" (Department of Sculpture)
"My work draws on the growth of plants for creation," said Wu Qian, a postgraduate at AADTHU who created her artworks under the supervision of mentor Chen Hui. Having studied an undergraduate degree in public art, moving into sculpture for her postgraduate studies proved a challenge. While admitting that she felt lost for some time, she then tried her best to learn more, ask more, and try more.
"Wu is a diligent and conscientious student. She had been struggling with not coming from a background in sculpture and so lacked somewhat in confidence. However, it's this kind of interdisciplinary leap that enabled her to have more choices and creative freedom," her mentor commented.
Wu shared her creative vision behind the "Growth Fades Away" series: "Plants are beautiful, so what will the irregular and virus-like forms created through transparent materials make people think? What could be behind the phantasm embodied by transparent materials? I want to explore the perception and thinking of individuals' current life."
"I particularly love the application of materials in sculpture and the way of creating space. Plexiglass was the material for my undergraduate creative application. It has the crystal transparency of glass, and although it's fragile, it has toughness and plasticity, so I wanted to continue exploring the expressive potential of this material in my creative work," she added.
Through much practice, she learned how heating can change the shape of this material. Later she made a lot of prototypes, and finally decided to adopt the theme of plant modeling in her creation. Wu said "Growth Fades Away" encompasses her thoughts about time, space and life, quoting from an essay in "Until the Moss Grows" by renowned Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto: "I think true beauty is something that can pass the test of time."
Throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties up to the present day, over glaze wucai (five-color) porcelain has constantly been evolving. "I try to give full play to the characteristics of wucai decoration from the perspectives of traditional wucai decoration techniques and color relations," young artist Jiang Chengliang said. "Combined with original designs and patterns, I created wucai works with both traditional charm and modern decorative features."
Jiang's research is based on the various decorative techniques that have appeared throughout the long evolution of traditional wucai, which he analyzed, summarizing its technical features and artistic effects.
On the basis of fully mastering the traditional multicolored decorative techniques, Jiang based his works on the numerous decorative techniques in traditional wucai, combined with innovative designs and patterns while utilizing traditional decorative skills. During the creative process, his main aims were to express the relationship between colors and decorative features, explore the full range of porcelain decoration techniques, and to create new wucai decorative techniques.
His supervisor, associate professor Zhang Xing, believes that Jiang's research into traditional ceramic decoration techniques is not only of academic value, but also of practical significance in promoting traditional culture and exploring innovative ideas today.
Jiang's dissertation incorporated a wide range of documents, with reasonable and effective research methods, allowing him to gain a deep understanding of traditional Ming and Qing glaze decoration. At the same time, on the basis of the oretical research and through creative practice - from modeling and decoration to firing processes - he independently completed multiple sets of glazed decorative art works.
"The composition of the creative practice works is ingenious, the patterns and shapes are adapted, and the colorful lines are also highlighted, which are stretched and powerful, filling the expressive imageswith vigor. In terms of coloring, they fully reflect the traditional wucai artistic ideas, and interpret the characteristics of traditional ceramic decoration," Jiang's mentor said.
"Innovation needs to be based on tradition," Jiang concluded. "If you want to deeply understand tradition, you need to study traditional crafts and culture in depth. For wucai porcelain decoration, you cannot truly understand tradition without doing it yourself."
He added: "Today, as national cultural self-confidence is being advocated, it is of great significance for the inheritance and development of wucai when we are able to make good use of traditional decorative techniques for modern porcelain decoration design."
Bai Yueyu: "The Folded Space" and "The Replacement Space" (Department of Arts and Crafts)
Exploring artistic expressions through shape and space, Bai Yueyu's poetic, abstract artistic creations are full of imagination and mystery .
"The inner space is constructed in the constrained limits of the lacquer and its uncontrollable changes," Bai explained. "By folding and displacing, the real volume is compressed and dissolved, and expressed in complanation. The painting becomes unfamiliar and fictional; a collection of possibilities and imaginations that exist outside of the consciousness, detached from color, function and reality."
She orchestrated spaces and shapes through visions of architecture, photography and changing relationships, employing superposition, rotation, deconstruction and reorganization. In the end, everything in her hands converges to minimalism from abundance, while bringing out the most essential element: the triangle.
"The triangle appears and repeats involuntarily in constant combinations and attempts. It is low-key and simple but powerful, and has directivity and mystery," she said.
Inmaking her artworks, Bai opted to utilize lacquer. "Lacquer is quiet and ever-lasting, with delicate and rich texture, so the quiet, stable and structured picture is suitable for dividing the material texture of lacquer for expressions. The lacquer's darkness becomes bright and rich in my heart. It is an erratic but essential color of lacquer, and this essence points to the space itself: emptiness, virtualness, diffuseness, diffusion," she elaborated.
Her mentor, professor Cheng Xiangjun, noted that the "physical" and "visual" spaces formed by natural lacquer materials have become the focus of Bai's creative interest. "In the large-scale composition of her works, you can see her interaction with the medium of lacquer and her skillful, masterful ability."
He added: "The reason why these works resonate with people lies in her understanding of the contemporary painting nature of lacquer art. The works abandon the apparentbeauty of the decorative language of lacquer art, and use geometric shapes to form pictures in a minimalist way, which allows people to connect with the experience of daily life."
For Bai, lacquer takes her into a space suspended above reality. "Rich, full, disordered but tight, it is about your will and stability, boundless and repetitive. We cannot observe ourselves apart from in real time and space, but we can experience the feeling of watching ourselves in another dimension through materials."
Yi Pengjun: "Road Shadow" (Department of Industrial Design)
The Road Shadow electric motorcycleconcept, designed by AADTHU postgraduate Yi Pengjun, hopes to change the problems of poor quality, difficult management, poor safety and lack ofrecognition of traditional motorcycles.
Yi Pengjun (right), a postgraduate at AADTHU, discusses the design of RoadShadowwith his supervisor professor Zhang Lei. [Image courtesy of AADTHU]
"Road Shadow is designed to target the urban youth group in 2025 and follows the concept of environmental protection. Itapplieselectric technology and a more avant-garde design language," Yi said.
In today's society, people's use of motorcycles is not limited to travel. Many people, especially younger people, ride motorcycles to express their personalities and follow their passions. However, the domestic market still has various problems such as uneven quality, insufficient environmental protection and poor safety. With the general trend toward electrification in China's transportation industry, Road Shadow tries to solve the problems related to motorcycles while retainingtheir advantages through a new design.
In his design, since the engine and gearbox of the electric motorcycle are replaced by battery pack and motor, the structureof the whole vehicle has undergone significant changes. While scrutinizing the scale and structure through sketches, he gradually added variouselements, metal cutting, transparent light guide elements and classic designs, so as to gradually shape the design of Road Shadow.
A mockup of the RoadShadow electric motorcycle by Yi Pengjun. [Image courtesy of AADTHU]
"Yi Pengjun's RoadShadow occupies less road surface, has low emissions, is easy to use, and has a uniquely entertaining nature. It not only meets the needs of young consumers, but also better adapts to China's road environment," commented Yi's mentor, professor Zhang Lei, also director of the Department of Industrial Design. He added that the work provides design references for future motorcycle electrification and the development of electric motorcycle brands, and Yi's research and design methods also bring academic value to the field of automotive design.
Yuan Ye: "Dimensional Script" (Department of Visual Communication)
In her postgraduate work, Yuan Ye opted to create a "three-dimensional" font design. In the work, the spatial curve of the writing trajectory is combined with the shape of strokesin a traditional Chinese font.
"Spatial movement is a key factor in the Chinese writing system. In clerical script, there is a deep connection between the appearance of a stroke and the spatial path produced in the writing process - the ebb and flow of the movement is directly translated into the visual shape of a stroke," Yuan explained. In the early stage of creating her graduation work, she focused her research on two classic works of calligraphy by ancient calligraphers Wang Xizhi and Yan Zhenqing.
Based on the research results of Chinese and Western writing theory, the study conducts a "three-dimensional" analysis of stroke forms. From the analysis of the spatial movement form of writing, commonalities of movement laws in the writing systems of Western words and Chinese characters and the prominent features of Chinese writingcan be seen. Comparing the spatial movement forms of Chinese and Western writings, it is evident that the writing of Chinese characters has more significant spatial movements.
Wang Hongwei, Yuan's mentor, said that the work breaks with traditional ways of thinking, and is both experimental and innovative. The research captures the natural spatial trajectory between the writing implementand the surface of the paper during the writing process, presents the performance factors involved in the writing, and generates a unique visual effect.
"There are many more possibilities to explore in the future for the expressive spaces of writing in different script styles," Wang said.
Editor: Guo Lili
