Chinese Calligraphy

The utilitarian value of writing is in its ability to preserve ideas and allow nonperishable communications. However, calligraphy also has artistic merit, from a pleasing arrangement of regular lines of ink on paper.

By piecing together fragmented strips of writing, and gluing them onto simplified geometric forms at disjointed angles, I wanted to take away the context and disrupt the flow of the writing. There are no longer coherent phrases, no literal meaning to be communicated by the writings. Instead, all that is left is the product of centuries of evolving standards of beauty, thinly (almost nakedly) wrapped around simple geometric shapes.

But tradition is not as heavy as some make it out to be. It is light, touchable, approachable. Tradition and aesthetics are not stationary. They might be anchored, but they can still flow, move and interact. They are not planted firmly on the ground. Rather, they float in the air, and shift with the presence of passers-by.