The Way Home
Artist: Huang Wei (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Qian Yunke
The graduation work captures images of the Miao people as they perform their Flower Dance, revealing the ethnic group's joyous lifestyle. Huang's in-depth study of perceptions of the mountainous tribe and observation of the realities of the Miao people's lives through said perceptions have resulted in a piece that exudes local, ethnic authenticity. Huang wields the language of carvings, seizing upon and persistently pursuing moments of sentimentality to immortalize fleeting gestures and present the Miao's spiritual psyche. In his hands, warm, welcoming wood is infused with the Miao's fierce spirit to create a piece that bridges realistic sculpture and ethnic culture.
Mise en Scène
Artist: Liu Jiachen (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Shi Hui
In Chinese garden architecture, mise en scène serves a functional and aesthetic purpose as an architectural element in the built environment. Openwork windows add structural elements and spatial layers to the space in a garden and add visual appeal. Through the openings in the window, the viewer can see the view and the visual narrative beyond the walls. The elements and repetitive motifs in Chinese paintings are similar to weaving in terms of visual language. The concept of "windows" to the modern individual has transcended a physical window through which they get sunlight, fresh air and a lovely view. A window can be a chat window in software or a medium through which humans interact with a machine. All visual information that is transmitted through such windows is virtual.
The Measure of Pain
Artist: Zhang Xianrui (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructors: Zhao Ming, Peng Xianfeng
The graduation work uses fetishism to uncover a story connected with countless families. The story tells of a mother who closes herself off from the world after an accident, her journey of self-recovery, and the reactions and actions of her husband and son. It begins with a broken family and ends with its reconciliation, a cycle both of healing and of pain that the artist measures in time. The 82 days, 4 hours and 16 minutes are marked by pain, struggle, hope and escape. Time becomes a thread that is pulled back and forth as it strings the clues together to form a tapestry of human emotion. The artist creates a familiar figure of the "mother" with common, shared traits to draw similarities between this figure and many real mothers and their actual familial plight, calling to attention the challenge in balancing one's identity and role in the family. How are human relationships formed? The installation is divided into four segments that are self-contained and also connected with one another. Roots, stem, leaves and flowers are used to represent broken connections, one-sided communication, emotional release and reconciliation. The family crisis that a family of three undergoes is presented in an abstract manner, with spatial displacements employed to accentuate the presence of these characters.
Celestial Gods
Artist: Liu Gefan (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructors: Zheng Jing, Kou Shude
As the chains of rationalism continue to multiply, everything inevitably falls within the newly birthed gap. Under the "othering" effect of absolute rationalism, a common, formulaic narrative becomes a blackhole that devours every other ideology. The Dionysian spirit is nowhere to be found. Liu tries to use localized art to manifest a series of surreal visual images and create a surrealistic image of an uncontrollable energy form of continuous agglomeration and engineer a sense of powerlessness in the face of an immense, unstoppable crisis and absolute laws of the universe so as to provoke thought.
Wandering
Artist: Ren Jun (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Chen Han
The skeleton slips out of its fleshy coat. As it wanders in the vicinity, it witnesses its body, crawling.
Non-sentient they may be, they are rich with life − like dust or plankton or spores, uncaring about their own death. Led by an innate instinct, they begin their journey toward "utopia" as soon as they come to be. Like a sea turtle that has hatched out of its shell, that searches for the ocean's glimmering surface, traversing vast distances as it crawls toward the sea, it's a linear movement that resembles a basic computer program. Perhaps, they came from "utopia", like how sea turtles come from the sea. Perhaps, they never found "utopia", like how sea turtles lose themselves on the vast beach.
Let us slow down. Let the sun rise again and smile upon us all. Let the cycle begin again. Let reality beget dreams and our dreams beget reality.
A Busy Man's Dream
Artist: Liu Yi (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Ban Lingsheng
In her attempt to set the scene for her graduation work, Liu looks inward. The centerpiece of Liu's graduation work is a horse and hundreds of caltrops. Memories and experiences are materials she uses to construct an engaging and expressive scene in real life and transform the general sentiment about contemporary times into real, tangible form. The horse's detailed form has been deliberately blurred, and its undefined outline and blurred form are the only clues that tell that what stands before them is a living creature. Its dark form stands amidst the scattered caltrops, painting a static image.
The Seed in the Mud, The Language of Lotus, and Chinese Landscape Series
Artist: Zhu Lei (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructors: Liu Jieyong, Zhang Keduan
The works are visual cruises that use spatial language to map out life and its myriad variations. Big vs small, many vs few, complicated vs simple − contrast is what makes landscape paintings interesting. They are an experience of tranquility and a form of meditation.
While The Language of Lotus and Chinese Landscape Series convey visual movement, The Seed in the Mud expresses emotional movement.
The seed is where life begins. It is planted, sowed, then harvested to feed mortal beings. Soil is the most common material we use in sculpture. Its malleability is what gives life to its final form. It can be shaped according to an artist's thoughts and feelings. When you place a seed in the soil, the seed returns to its original state.
Imbalance
Artist: Shu Yewen (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Huang Yan
This graduation work is inspired by an allergic disease − chronic hives. Hives can develop all over one's body and is unpredictable and recurrent, but not fatal. It leaves no mark after its occurrence. This overreactive immune response transforms the patient into a puppet who prays every night that the tiny pill they take will work while mentally preparing themselves for the "storm" ahead should it not. The work is made up of hands and arms, areas where hives typically develop. Frosted PVC and capsule shells were used to depict the human skin and create an enigmatic, mysterious quality. Pink lace yarn represents blood vessels and depicts fluidity. The distorted arms that have been sewn together reveal the strong desire for newly reconstructed, healthy skin. The only side effect of pills for allergies is "sleepiness". Lights of two different colors were employed to create shadows of different colors to amplify a dreamy shadow play that appears to be happening outside the window, juxtaposing the fantastical scene outside with the harsh condition plaguing the body inside and rousing the viewer's curiosity while shocking them psychologically.
Shu Yi
Artist: Zhou Zi'an (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Zhang Haijun
One of the materials chosen for this series of works is Indian Black Granite. Zhou preserved the marks left on the stone during the mining process as well as the marks made by industrial equipment during the creative process. The contrast and integration of natural stone and modern industrial technology is a subject that demands study and reflection. The artist installed a hidden motor in the center of the stone. A copper rod drives the rotation of the stone, serving as a metaphor for how time is a witness to history leaving its mark on all things and how it repeats itself, endlessly.
White marble was used in the second work of this series. A depression was created on one half of the square stone through polishing and then filled with water until it was level with the other side. As the motor rotates, the stone glides across the water. The ripples produced are the manifestation of time. As time passes, the water will evaporate. This, too, becomes a mark that time leaves. The visible, the invisible, the firm, the malleable − these are all elements found within nature and within the small square of stone. Zhou preserved the white marble's original textured surface on its sides to convey the significance of time in nature.
G617 Granite was used in the third work. Zhou produced the texture of the stone through chiseling and kept the stone chips that were chiseled off. These chips were then scattered around the work to express the idea of nature being stripped away. As time passes and the years go by, these chipped stones fall and collide with one another in both an orderly and chaotic manner, forming a part of the work as well as representing rebirth in the temporal field.
I have myself；I hate myself, but I love myself；I'm always by your side
Artist: Wang Shirong (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Liu Jieyong
This graduation work is centered on the young human body that is presented as a fusion of a sculpture in the round and relief sculpture expressed through exaggerated, figurative distortions that blur the lines between the real and unreal. Symbolic elements like crows and boats are incorporated to assert the presence of "me" and "my" inner psyche. The final sculpture is filled with details and exudes love, melancholy, tenderness, and beauty. It is the intertwining of the physical and illusory as well as the blending of order and madness. With its unwavering focus, sincerity, and compassion, it is no impartial, indifferent judge, but a confidant who empathizes and gives in to emotion.
Autolife-01
Artist: Qian Chen (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Zheng Jing
Humankind faces population collapse due to a fast decline in birthrate, particularly in recent years. The world is once again debating the feasibility of artificial wombs. Imagine a world in which artificial wombs were developed and their use put into practice. What kind of society would arise from a population of mass-produced humans? The artist paves the way for debate on this subject by examining the features of mass production in the modern food industry and zooming in on the controversies surrounding the mass production of human beings via artificial wombs.
Fantasy
Artist: Yang Xuxiao (School of Sculpture and Public Art)
Instructor: Ruan Yuelai
The artist is of the view that the existence of society is gradually fading away and has become something that is pieced together from fantasy and reality. The novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? explores the idea of how life becomes meaningless as humankind loses its humanity. Rapid technology advances have led to a greater public awareness of the metaverse, a concept that was formerly a novelty, and have paved the way toward a virtual world. By grounding his work in "fantasy", the artist explores the artistic fusion of the real and the virtual in the post-human era – fantasy is both rooted in reality and the enticement that draws viewers into reality. The installation is made up of multiple components whose interconnectivity results in an internal resonance and creates an imaginary world. Its main structure is a steel framework that is covered with composite materials. A camera captures images of audiences who enter the installation space. These raw images are processed and the AI-generated images are downloaded into the TD for further audience engagement. The final visual product is presented via projection mapping and shown on LED screens.
About BRAIN GARDEN
Brain Garden – The 5th Zhijiang International Youth Art Festival 2023 & CAA Graduation Season kicked off online and offline concurrently on June 1. This edition of Youth Art Festival is co-hosted by Zhejiang Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Publicity Department of the CPC Hangzhou Municipal Committee, China Academy of Art (CAA), and Zhejiang Conservatory of Music under the guidance of the Publicity Department of CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee and Hangzhou Municipal People's Government. The festival features a wide variety of online and offline artistic shows and activities centered on the future and the youth. It is a grand city-wide artistic feast in Hangzhou.
The Youth Art Festival is presented online on CAACOSMOS and West Lake Sky Screen and offline at six venues, namely Zhejiang Exhibition Hall, West Lake Art Museum, Zhejiang Art Museum, World Tourism Museum (1368 Xiangxi Road), Quan Shanshi Art Center, and Yichuang Town, with a total exhibition area of nearly 70,000 square meters. Over 3,000 works from more than 2,500 Class of 2023 graduates (including 1,766 undergraduates, 688 masters, and 97 doctors) are showcased. Over 2,000 young artists, designers, writers, and scholars have gathered online for this youthful art event.
Related news: https://en.caa.edu.cn/news/1039.html
