Storytelling the Void in the Chinese Pictographic Writing System Painting

I saw traditional Chinese characters engraved on a large rock at Pearson Square, London. It reminded me of the Chinese characters on the tortoise plastron as well as those on the Nanjing city wall. In the 14thcentury, under the instruction of the emperor, each family in Nanjing must supply one brick with the name of each of the family members branded on the brick; if the brick broke during the construction, the whole family would be beheaded. All Nanjing citizens were living in the pressure of time, restriction, material impossibilities and emotional strain during the construction. But, those Chinese characters on the tortoise plastron and on the Nanjing city wall are in the Chinese pictographic writing system. This site-specific calligraphic work was painted on the wall for the MRes graduation exhibition, 2018. I was told to complete the work in 3 days time. I learned the pressure of ‘building the city wall’, especially when I was trying to set the optical cotton rag paper in 90 degrees. I had to undo the painting at the end of the exhibition. Unlike those characters on the tortoise plastron, Nanjing city wall and the rock at Pearson Square, the void happened in the writing system because certain characters had short life and never been recorded or been recorded but did not survive the cultural revolutions, just like Da Zheng’s urged of ‘The Cultural Revolution was a massive destruction of culture and tradition, among which was calligraphy’.

Painting:Ink on Other

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:165.4 W x 39.4 H x 0 D in

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