UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Painting Protests: The (Dis)Harmonious Relationship between Nature and Humans in My Art by Shuoyuan Zhang A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ART CALGARY, ALBERTA MAY, 2022 © Shuoyuan Zhang 2022
Painting Protests: The (Dis)Harmonious Relationship between Nature and Humans in My Art
Mar 28, 2023
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The (Dis)Harmonious Relationship between Nature and Humans in My Art
by
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ART
ii
Abstract
Through my research creation, I aim to highlight environmental issues that are unfolding
around us in real time regarding climate change and plastics pollution to enhance vigilance
towards these issues. This research creation looks to increase cultural sensitivity as this is
essential when it comes to advocating for environmental awareness and encouraging considerate
and responsible custodianship. Such an approach as this is a means of changing discussions,
challenging mindsets, and promoting positive cultural responses to climate change. A major part
of my work consists of handmade masks (alike to those used by the masses during the COVID-
19 pandemic) that are painted with abstract landscape images to give viewers a sense of where
they could possibly end up if they are not disposed of responsibly. This highlights the disposable
quality of the masks as objects and the damage they are already having on the environment. The
masks and other disposable plastic items are displayed as installations aiming to directly confront
viewers with the reality of environmental pollution and its negative effects on human health and
the health of the ecology and the environment. My work directs people to reconsider their
choices and habits when it comes to their consumption of plastics for the sake of the natural
environment.
iii
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my supervisor Mr. Gerald Hushlak's for his guidance and support throughout the
program. Special thanks to my committee members Dr. Dona Schwartz and Dr. Xie Shaobo for
their valuable insights and suggestions. In addition, I would also like to thank all the faculty,
staff and my MFA colleagues for their help and support.
iv
Painting Protests: The (Dis)Harmonious Relationship between Nature and Humans in My Art . i
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iii
1.3 Inspirational Background ..................................................................................................3
2.1 What is Dao? ........................................................................................................................14
2.2 Concepts of Daoism or Taoism - Dao Operates Naturally (dao fa zi ran ) ..........17
2.3 Concepts of Taoism - Heaven and Man Are United as One ( Tian ren he yi) .....18
2.4 Dao and the Primary Concern(s) of Contemporary Environmentalism ...............................19
2.5 Painting and Daoism ............................................................................................................22
Chapter 3: Artist Influences ........................................................................................................ 27
3.1 Xu Bing ................................................................................................................................27
3.2 Olafur Eliasson .....................................................................................................................31
3.3 Chris Jordan .........................................................................................................................34
3.4 Crystal Wagner ....................................................................................................................36
3.5 Tara Donovan .......................................................................................................................37
4.1 Description of Work .............................................................................................................49
5.1 Description of Work .............................................................................................................55
6.1 Description of Work .............................................................................................................62
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Untitled; also known as It’s All Over The City, by Wols (1913-1951) ........................... 7
Figure 2: T-50 Painting 8, by Hartung (1904-1989) ....................................................................... 8
Figure 3: Twin Swallows, by Wu Guanzhong Chinese Ink Painting, 1988. ................................. 25
Figures 4-6: Background Story: Landscape After Huang Gongwang, found object installation, by
Xu Bing, 2019. .............................................................................................................................. 28
Figures 7-9: Phoenix, found objects installation, by Xu Bing, 2012. ........................................... 30
Figures 10-12: Ice Watch, 2014 by Olafur Eliasson. .................................................................... 33
Figure 13: Midway: Message from the Gyre, by Chris Jordan, .................................................... 35
Figure 14: Urban Kudzu, found object sculpture, by Crystal Wagner, 2016. .............................. 37
Figure 15: Untitled (Plastic Cups), found object installation, by Tara Donovan, 2006-2015. ..... 38
Figure 16: Mermaids Hate Plastic, by Benjamin Von Wong. This ocean is made of 10,000
plastic bottles, ............................................................................................................................... 40
Figure 17: Decayed Landscape No.3, by Shang Yang. Mixed media on canvas, 2018. .............. 41
Figure 18: The Dong Qichang Project-31, by Shang Yang. Mixed Media on canvas, 2010. ...... 43
Figure 19: Ice Blossom 1............................................................................................................... 44
Figure 20: Ice Blossom 2............................................................................................................... 45
Figure 21: Ice Blossom 3............................................................................................................... 45
Figure 22: Ice Blossom 4............................................................................................................... 46
Figure 23: Ice Blossom 5............................................................................................................... 46
vii
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
From 2020, the world as we knew it ended. As COVID-19 spread (and is still rife) across
the globe, the ways that we had lived our lives are no longer viable. Instead, our everyday lives
now revolve around stopping the spread of the disease. The ability to work from home and social
distance from strangers, friends, and family members are options available to only a select few.
People living in developing nations often lack the capacity to appropriately respond to the
pandemic. With internet access, grocery delivery services, availability of vaccines and other
preventative measures that help stop the spread of the virus being, largely, out of their reach,
marginalized communities are considerably more vulnerable and, hence, bear much more of the
brunt of the pandemic.
Asides from the human crisis of the COVID pandemic, the planet is also in the midst of
global climate change and all the associated, devasting effects that this brings to all life on Earth.
The pandemic may even be a symptom of climate change and is likely not to be the last or even
worse pandemic that we see. As with COVID, marginalized communities are set to suffer more
acutely from climate change. When it comes to the impact of climate change, individuals in
poorer countries are more likely to see and feel the negative effects of natural disasters and
changes in seasonal weather patterns more severely, while privileged individuals, to a certain
extent, escape the more acute effects (Phillips et al. 2020).
1.1 Rationale and Objective
This burgeoning new world of living through climate change and dealing with the
multiple and varied threats that it brings is what I want to address and explore in my work. My
intent is to use my art to illustrate the gravity of this situation and to raise awareness of the global
crisis that is climate change, including the contribution that plastics/microplastics pollution has
2
on greenhouse gas emissions (WWF 2021). The work of Benjamin Von Wong and his
“Mermaids Hate Plastic” project (see Figure 16), which highlights plastic pollution in the
oceans, has been integral in my design decisions.
The main motivation for this research, thus, comes from environmental disasters—the
increased severity and risk of natural disasters and the increased severity and frequency of
extreme winters and summers—that human societies face across the globe and the serious risk
that they pose to the survival of all species on this planet, including humans (Banholzer, Kossin,
and Donner 2014). Throughout my Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program, my art practice has
been driven by the intention of developing a visual language through metaphorical abstract
landscape paintings in order to reveal the very real environmental issues that are changing our
world in the short-term and threaten to continue and add to these changes in the long-term.
1.2 Research Question – Making the Intangible Tangible Through Art
The research inquiry that has guided my artistic exploration throughout my time in the
MFA program has been how the intangible can become tangible through art. Specifically, with
my work, I strive to demonstrate how nature, natural processes, and the impact of human
activities on nature can be understood through the creation of physical art.
Nature, as a sublime entity, can cause feelings of overwhelming and speechless awe
“triggered by the experience of subjugation to something greater than oneself” (Burke 1757
(2005), as cited in Bethelmy and Corraliza 2019, 2). But can this, in all its dynamic expressions
(both at the macro and the micro scale), be understood through the individual interpretation and
creation of art? In an attempt to address this, much of the work that I have created is based on my
concern for the ecological environment, the potential erasure of natural history through the
destruction of the environment, and the relationship between nature and humanity. Thematically,
3
my work is fueled by current global events. As such, I often try to provide viewers with a
personal and in-depth expression, interpretation, and reflection that explore the urgent problems
faced by humanity, regarding their relationship with nature, and to encourage people’s
admiration and modest understanding of the world. I have aimed to answer my research question
in my final exhibition by relying on a fusion of historical culture, contemporary art processes,
and installation.
My research creation has utilized abstract ink paintings and installation to convey a
tangible artistic hardcopy to illustrate my research interests. Throughout the MFA program, I
have adhered to the permutations of ink wash painting to express my feelings and thoughts about
contemporary conflicts of climate change, primarily rooted in the environmental issues in which
I am most interested. Fundamentally, my research explores the act or process of catharsis,
whereby nature looks for a release from the damage being done by humans and tries to make
multiple declarations of something being very wrong.
In short, my work seeks to answer the research question, “Can expression through art make
intangible climate change and plastics pollution tangible and lead humans to be more vigilant
caretakers of the Earth?”
1.3 Inspirational Background
Ink wash painting is a technique used in traditional Chinese and East Asian ink brush art
that has a rich and historical cultural background. Ink wash painting “is among the excellent and
most important of all Chinese art forms and an inseparable part of Chinese history [...] it involves
essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink
without using oils” (Yang et al. 2020, 1-2). One of the reasons that Chinese ink painting is such
an apt medium for my art is because it is a technique that “employs free and concise strokes and
4
ink to describe the appearance and spirit of the objects and express the artist's sensation and
thought” (Yang et al. 2020, 1-2). The catastrophe of climate change is an intangible pain, one
that weighs heavily on one’s mind and impacts the way that one may move through and see the
world (Gifford and Gifford 2016). Chinese ink painting is, thus, a well-suited medium to
represent this intangible pain that I feel and the battered spirit that I see in our planet and its
inhabitants alike.
It is also a medium that I am familiar with: I started to learn traditional Chinese painting
when I was growing up in China. This childhood connection is a strong memory for me; it has
since guided my aesthetics tastes and the philosophy with which it is linked. Thus, it has often
been the lens through which I see the world. As a child, I experimented with creating art from the
materials I found around me. Today, my work is still influenced by the relationship between the
internal (myself) and external (physical) worlds. Materials such as ice cubes, plastics, rice paper,
and ink are all examples of the media that I have imagined and imbued my spirit with, in order to
create art. This goes back to my childhood where, during summer vacation, painting and ice
cream were both as equally important to my growth as an artist: The first, because it was a
medium that I quickly fell in love with; and the second, because I could see beauty in the
strawberry swirls in my ice cream, melting from solid to liquid, which made me think that there
must be a spirit in every rock, tree, and even ice cream cone around me.
In the art created during my MFA, I blended Western oil painting (to which I have been
exposed throughout my art education in Canada) with the language of traditional Chinese ink
painting. Using both media, I attempted to present abstract textures and interpret traditional
landscape illustrations. Traditional Chinese landscape painting is based on the image of nature,
as something that exists objectively and constantly; as something to be interpreted subjectively
5
and as a sublimation of people and nature. Nature has been interpreted differently over and over
again through the eyes of humanity. The cyclical temperament of landscapes of past generations
remains for future ones to re-interpret. Hence, a major theme in my research is how to hold and
cherish the spirit of traditional landscape painting and transform it into one that is contemporary
in its essence.
My creative work expresses a combination of my life experience with my personal
cultural knowledge and beliefs, all of which enable me to embrace and build upon the traditional
concepts of ink wash painting. “In the traditional Chinese painting art, objects are depicted
mainly by lines and ink to express the body, which is combined with poetry, calligraphy and seal
cutting to achieve the effect of “Both form and spirit for vivid charm”” (Shang 2020, 1). As an
artist, my work has attempts to reconcile the Western and East Asian cultures that influence me.
As these cultures differ so widely and in so many ways, the tension between them is translated
into my work through the integration of traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western
abstract techniques.
1.4 Methodology
Through a comparative study of traditional Chinese landscape painting (primarily those
that came about in the Song dynasty), and of Western abstract painting (primarily that created by
artists, such as Schulze and Hartung, who explored the ability of abstract painting to depict the
external world), I sought to explore the tensions in humanity's relationship with nature (Scott
2006; Shang 2020). My data collection began with the gathering of visual and theoretical sources
relating to Chinese landscape and Western abstract painting. These respective genres share many
common elements. Both styles of art explore people's praise for nature, the harmony between
6
people and nature, and how people communicate emotionally through the process of painting; to
some, this is through the act of catharsis experienced both by people and the Earth.
Landscape painting has a long history in China where the emotionally sensitive state of
the country has allowed audiences to appreciate the natural beauty of landscapes. The view of
nature derived from the age-old Chinese philosophical and spiritual tradition of Daoism (or
Taoism), which emphasizes living in harmony with all that exists (Dao, or Tao), has often
influenced Chinese landscape painters (Scott 2006). This has allowed them to directly express
their emotions felt in response to nature: The awe felt in the face of the sublime and how nature
may or may not respond to them (Diep 2017). Many Daoist painters regard everything in the
world as "empty," and consider places where there are few or no people as ideal (Diep 2017;
Scott 2006). After the Song and Yuan Dynasties (circa 960 to 1368), many landscape painters
pursued the purity of the picture images they created instead of drawing people, showing a
"desolate" atmosphere, reflecting on the "born" and "transcendental" (Scott 2006; Shang 2020).
This attitude reflects the Daoist perspective of the universe.
This Daoist perspective can also be found in Western abstract painting, evoking
expressive connections through “a microcosmic view of the macrocosm of the universe” (Scott
2006, 72). Examples of this, and from whom my own work takes influence, are the Western
artists Wolfgang Schulze (who went by the pseudonym: Wols) and Hans Hartung, respectively
of German and German-French origin, both of whom worked predominantly in France from the
mid-1900s. Both Wols’ and Hartung’s gestural abstract work seem to connect the world
(macrocosm) to the individual (microcosm) in order to turn the intangible (the unknowable truth
of the world) into a tangible, and individually felt experiences such as can be seen in their
depictions of growing cells or celestial bodies.
7
Wols' painting, It's All Over the City (see Figure 1), for instance, depicts vibrant swirling
black calligraphic lines, extending from the hollow center like a nebula. In the shades of brown
and yellow, the bright blue wave points and the blue-green background create a microscopic
molecular world, bursting out huge, deconstructed energy, “his concern for the minutiae and
physicality of the natural world, wedded to a kind of Taoist modesty that resists the outsize
demonstrations of self-typical of his peers” (Butler 2013).
Figure 1: Untitled; also known as It’s All Over The City, by Wols (1913-1951)
1946-47
https://artblart.com/tag/wols-its-all-over-the-city/
Similarly, Hartung’s painting, T-50 Painting 8 (see Figure 2) makes reference to a style of
writing that represents an attempt to understand, to make tangible, and to make personal an
impersonal, intangible world.
1950
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/1618
Perhaps more so than the painting by Wols, Hartung’s painting is organized in the
application of the materials. The various shaped swatches of colour are ordered in such a way
that they have the appearance of being laid out like a garden or an untilled field. This rational
control of the bold lines combined with the frantic movement of the thin lines is something that I
looked to implement in the more atmospheric-inspired Chinese landscape elements of my
paintings.
Comparing the contemporary works of Western abstract painters with the spiritual
connotations and philosophical content in Chinese landscape art, my work aims to synthesize a
visual language that speaks to the complexity of the micro and macro worlds that coexist in the
landscape. My series of paintings contains a virtual, quiet, and ethereal spirit, representative of
different fragmented scenes of the landscape on different scales. Combining elements from
Eastern and Western artistic processes provided me with dual entry points so that I could cater
for both Eastern and Western viewers, and especially viewers who sit (as I do) somewhere
between the two poles of East and West in their appreciation of paintings. In offering access into
my paintings for a diverse range of viewers, I aim to facilitate an experience that extends beyond
surface level differences to find commonalities in my audiences, promotes a reverence for the
natural world, and stimulates the realization of our responsibility to protect it.
1.4.2 Materials
Throughout my MFA program, I used ink wash painting as the primary medium to
address my research inquiry. This material investigation developed over the course of the
program in tandem with my research. I largely used this medium to convey my concern about the
human relationship with the environment through abstract landscape images. For me, landscape
painting is all about thinking through history and into contemporary life; it is a way to establish
connections between traditions and modernity.
Landscape ink wash painting has been revered through multiple dynasties in China’s
history and is considered to have entered its golden age in the Song Dynasty (between 960–
1279), becoming mainstream during this period. As Shaw (1998, as cited in Leung 2020, 209)
suggests, “Chinese landscape painting […] is literally a painting of mountains and water, both of
which are material and tangible features of nature. Chinese painting is closely related to the Zen
Buddhist and Taoist ideals of total concentration in the act of the very moment, and harmony
between man and nature.” It involves brush and ink on paper or silk and uses disciplined
brushstroke skills that are required for calligraphy to animate the paintings’ subjects.
In searching for a way to better convey my concerns about the environment, I turned to
my daily life and reflected upon my own environmental footprint. Due to the pandemic, masks
have become a commonplace item and, as a result of their widespread and often mandatory use,
they have become a new aspect of our disposable culture. The material used in the disposable
masks is very light. The environmental impact of disposable masks is potentially large, as their
10
production generates pollution, they result in increased litter, and, if they are not properly
disposed of (especially in coastal regions), they are likely to end up in the ocean (Prata, Silva,
Duarte, and Rocha-Santos 2021). I began to think about how I could adapt my artistic processes
to confront the viewer more directly with the issue of masks littering the environment.
Thus, I began making abstract ink wash landscape paintings in a smaller size and, once
they had dried, I folded them in a way that mimicked…
by
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ART
ii
Abstract
Through my research creation, I aim to highlight environmental issues that are unfolding
around us in real time regarding climate change and plastics pollution to enhance vigilance
towards these issues. This research creation looks to increase cultural sensitivity as this is
essential when it comes to advocating for environmental awareness and encouraging considerate
and responsible custodianship. Such an approach as this is a means of changing discussions,
challenging mindsets, and promoting positive cultural responses to climate change. A major part
of my work consists of handmade masks (alike to those used by the masses during the COVID-
19 pandemic) that are painted with abstract landscape images to give viewers a sense of where
they could possibly end up if they are not disposed of responsibly. This highlights the disposable
quality of the masks as objects and the damage they are already having on the environment. The
masks and other disposable plastic items are displayed as installations aiming to directly confront
viewers with the reality of environmental pollution and its negative effects on human health and
the health of the ecology and the environment. My work directs people to reconsider their
choices and habits when it comes to their consumption of plastics for the sake of the natural
environment.
iii
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my supervisor Mr. Gerald Hushlak's for his guidance and support throughout the
program. Special thanks to my committee members Dr. Dona Schwartz and Dr. Xie Shaobo for
their valuable insights and suggestions. In addition, I would also like to thank all the faculty,
staff and my MFA colleagues for their help and support.
iv
Painting Protests: The (Dis)Harmonious Relationship between Nature and Humans in My Art . i
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iii
1.3 Inspirational Background ..................................................................................................3
2.1 What is Dao? ........................................................................................................................14
2.2 Concepts of Daoism or Taoism - Dao Operates Naturally (dao fa zi ran ) ..........17
2.3 Concepts of Taoism - Heaven and Man Are United as One ( Tian ren he yi) .....18
2.4 Dao and the Primary Concern(s) of Contemporary Environmentalism ...............................19
2.5 Painting and Daoism ............................................................................................................22
Chapter 3: Artist Influences ........................................................................................................ 27
3.1 Xu Bing ................................................................................................................................27
3.2 Olafur Eliasson .....................................................................................................................31
3.3 Chris Jordan .........................................................................................................................34
3.4 Crystal Wagner ....................................................................................................................36
3.5 Tara Donovan .......................................................................................................................37
4.1 Description of Work .............................................................................................................49
5.1 Description of Work .............................................................................................................55
6.1 Description of Work .............................................................................................................62
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Untitled; also known as It’s All Over The City, by Wols (1913-1951) ........................... 7
Figure 2: T-50 Painting 8, by Hartung (1904-1989) ....................................................................... 8
Figure 3: Twin Swallows, by Wu Guanzhong Chinese Ink Painting, 1988. ................................. 25
Figures 4-6: Background Story: Landscape After Huang Gongwang, found object installation, by
Xu Bing, 2019. .............................................................................................................................. 28
Figures 7-9: Phoenix, found objects installation, by Xu Bing, 2012. ........................................... 30
Figures 10-12: Ice Watch, 2014 by Olafur Eliasson. .................................................................... 33
Figure 13: Midway: Message from the Gyre, by Chris Jordan, .................................................... 35
Figure 14: Urban Kudzu, found object sculpture, by Crystal Wagner, 2016. .............................. 37
Figure 15: Untitled (Plastic Cups), found object installation, by Tara Donovan, 2006-2015. ..... 38
Figure 16: Mermaids Hate Plastic, by Benjamin Von Wong. This ocean is made of 10,000
plastic bottles, ............................................................................................................................... 40
Figure 17: Decayed Landscape No.3, by Shang Yang. Mixed media on canvas, 2018. .............. 41
Figure 18: The Dong Qichang Project-31, by Shang Yang. Mixed Media on canvas, 2010. ...... 43
Figure 19: Ice Blossom 1............................................................................................................... 44
Figure 20: Ice Blossom 2............................................................................................................... 45
Figure 21: Ice Blossom 3............................................................................................................... 45
Figure 22: Ice Blossom 4............................................................................................................... 46
Figure 23: Ice Blossom 5............................................................................................................... 46
vii
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
From 2020, the world as we knew it ended. As COVID-19 spread (and is still rife) across
the globe, the ways that we had lived our lives are no longer viable. Instead, our everyday lives
now revolve around stopping the spread of the disease. The ability to work from home and social
distance from strangers, friends, and family members are options available to only a select few.
People living in developing nations often lack the capacity to appropriately respond to the
pandemic. With internet access, grocery delivery services, availability of vaccines and other
preventative measures that help stop the spread of the virus being, largely, out of their reach,
marginalized communities are considerably more vulnerable and, hence, bear much more of the
brunt of the pandemic.
Asides from the human crisis of the COVID pandemic, the planet is also in the midst of
global climate change and all the associated, devasting effects that this brings to all life on Earth.
The pandemic may even be a symptom of climate change and is likely not to be the last or even
worse pandemic that we see. As with COVID, marginalized communities are set to suffer more
acutely from climate change. When it comes to the impact of climate change, individuals in
poorer countries are more likely to see and feel the negative effects of natural disasters and
changes in seasonal weather patterns more severely, while privileged individuals, to a certain
extent, escape the more acute effects (Phillips et al. 2020).
1.1 Rationale and Objective
This burgeoning new world of living through climate change and dealing with the
multiple and varied threats that it brings is what I want to address and explore in my work. My
intent is to use my art to illustrate the gravity of this situation and to raise awareness of the global
crisis that is climate change, including the contribution that plastics/microplastics pollution has
2
on greenhouse gas emissions (WWF 2021). The work of Benjamin Von Wong and his
“Mermaids Hate Plastic” project (see Figure 16), which highlights plastic pollution in the
oceans, has been integral in my design decisions.
The main motivation for this research, thus, comes from environmental disasters—the
increased severity and risk of natural disasters and the increased severity and frequency of
extreme winters and summers—that human societies face across the globe and the serious risk
that they pose to the survival of all species on this planet, including humans (Banholzer, Kossin,
and Donner 2014). Throughout my Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program, my art practice has
been driven by the intention of developing a visual language through metaphorical abstract
landscape paintings in order to reveal the very real environmental issues that are changing our
world in the short-term and threaten to continue and add to these changes in the long-term.
1.2 Research Question – Making the Intangible Tangible Through Art
The research inquiry that has guided my artistic exploration throughout my time in the
MFA program has been how the intangible can become tangible through art. Specifically, with
my work, I strive to demonstrate how nature, natural processes, and the impact of human
activities on nature can be understood through the creation of physical art.
Nature, as a sublime entity, can cause feelings of overwhelming and speechless awe
“triggered by the experience of subjugation to something greater than oneself” (Burke 1757
(2005), as cited in Bethelmy and Corraliza 2019, 2). But can this, in all its dynamic expressions
(both at the macro and the micro scale), be understood through the individual interpretation and
creation of art? In an attempt to address this, much of the work that I have created is based on my
concern for the ecological environment, the potential erasure of natural history through the
destruction of the environment, and the relationship between nature and humanity. Thematically,
3
my work is fueled by current global events. As such, I often try to provide viewers with a
personal and in-depth expression, interpretation, and reflection that explore the urgent problems
faced by humanity, regarding their relationship with nature, and to encourage people’s
admiration and modest understanding of the world. I have aimed to answer my research question
in my final exhibition by relying on a fusion of historical culture, contemporary art processes,
and installation.
My research creation has utilized abstract ink paintings and installation to convey a
tangible artistic hardcopy to illustrate my research interests. Throughout the MFA program, I
have adhered to the permutations of ink wash painting to express my feelings and thoughts about
contemporary conflicts of climate change, primarily rooted in the environmental issues in which
I am most interested. Fundamentally, my research explores the act or process of catharsis,
whereby nature looks for a release from the damage being done by humans and tries to make
multiple declarations of something being very wrong.
In short, my work seeks to answer the research question, “Can expression through art make
intangible climate change and plastics pollution tangible and lead humans to be more vigilant
caretakers of the Earth?”
1.3 Inspirational Background
Ink wash painting is a technique used in traditional Chinese and East Asian ink brush art
that has a rich and historical cultural background. Ink wash painting “is among the excellent and
most important of all Chinese art forms and an inseparable part of Chinese history [...] it involves
essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink
without using oils” (Yang et al. 2020, 1-2). One of the reasons that Chinese ink painting is such
an apt medium for my art is because it is a technique that “employs free and concise strokes and
4
ink to describe the appearance and spirit of the objects and express the artist's sensation and
thought” (Yang et al. 2020, 1-2). The catastrophe of climate change is an intangible pain, one
that weighs heavily on one’s mind and impacts the way that one may move through and see the
world (Gifford and Gifford 2016). Chinese ink painting is, thus, a well-suited medium to
represent this intangible pain that I feel and the battered spirit that I see in our planet and its
inhabitants alike.
It is also a medium that I am familiar with: I started to learn traditional Chinese painting
when I was growing up in China. This childhood connection is a strong memory for me; it has
since guided my aesthetics tastes and the philosophy with which it is linked. Thus, it has often
been the lens through which I see the world. As a child, I experimented with creating art from the
materials I found around me. Today, my work is still influenced by the relationship between the
internal (myself) and external (physical) worlds. Materials such as ice cubes, plastics, rice paper,
and ink are all examples of the media that I have imagined and imbued my spirit with, in order to
create art. This goes back to my childhood where, during summer vacation, painting and ice
cream were both as equally important to my growth as an artist: The first, because it was a
medium that I quickly fell in love with; and the second, because I could see beauty in the
strawberry swirls in my ice cream, melting from solid to liquid, which made me think that there
must be a spirit in every rock, tree, and even ice cream cone around me.
In the art created during my MFA, I blended Western oil painting (to which I have been
exposed throughout my art education in Canada) with the language of traditional Chinese ink
painting. Using both media, I attempted to present abstract textures and interpret traditional
landscape illustrations. Traditional Chinese landscape painting is based on the image of nature,
as something that exists objectively and constantly; as something to be interpreted subjectively
5
and as a sublimation of people and nature. Nature has been interpreted differently over and over
again through the eyes of humanity. The cyclical temperament of landscapes of past generations
remains for future ones to re-interpret. Hence, a major theme in my research is how to hold and
cherish the spirit of traditional landscape painting and transform it into one that is contemporary
in its essence.
My creative work expresses a combination of my life experience with my personal
cultural knowledge and beliefs, all of which enable me to embrace and build upon the traditional
concepts of ink wash painting. “In the traditional Chinese painting art, objects are depicted
mainly by lines and ink to express the body, which is combined with poetry, calligraphy and seal
cutting to achieve the effect of “Both form and spirit for vivid charm”” (Shang 2020, 1). As an
artist, my work has attempts to reconcile the Western and East Asian cultures that influence me.
As these cultures differ so widely and in so many ways, the tension between them is translated
into my work through the integration of traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western
abstract techniques.
1.4 Methodology
Through a comparative study of traditional Chinese landscape painting (primarily those
that came about in the Song dynasty), and of Western abstract painting (primarily that created by
artists, such as Schulze and Hartung, who explored the ability of abstract painting to depict the
external world), I sought to explore the tensions in humanity's relationship with nature (Scott
2006; Shang 2020). My data collection began with the gathering of visual and theoretical sources
relating to Chinese landscape and Western abstract painting. These respective genres share many
common elements. Both styles of art explore people's praise for nature, the harmony between
6
people and nature, and how people communicate emotionally through the process of painting; to
some, this is through the act of catharsis experienced both by people and the Earth.
Landscape painting has a long history in China where the emotionally sensitive state of
the country has allowed audiences to appreciate the natural beauty of landscapes. The view of
nature derived from the age-old Chinese philosophical and spiritual tradition of Daoism (or
Taoism), which emphasizes living in harmony with all that exists (Dao, or Tao), has often
influenced Chinese landscape painters (Scott 2006). This has allowed them to directly express
their emotions felt in response to nature: The awe felt in the face of the sublime and how nature
may or may not respond to them (Diep 2017). Many Daoist painters regard everything in the
world as "empty," and consider places where there are few or no people as ideal (Diep 2017;
Scott 2006). After the Song and Yuan Dynasties (circa 960 to 1368), many landscape painters
pursued the purity of the picture images they created instead of drawing people, showing a
"desolate" atmosphere, reflecting on the "born" and "transcendental" (Scott 2006; Shang 2020).
This attitude reflects the Daoist perspective of the universe.
This Daoist perspective can also be found in Western abstract painting, evoking
expressive connections through “a microcosmic view of the macrocosm of the universe” (Scott
2006, 72). Examples of this, and from whom my own work takes influence, are the Western
artists Wolfgang Schulze (who went by the pseudonym: Wols) and Hans Hartung, respectively
of German and German-French origin, both of whom worked predominantly in France from the
mid-1900s. Both Wols’ and Hartung’s gestural abstract work seem to connect the world
(macrocosm) to the individual (microcosm) in order to turn the intangible (the unknowable truth
of the world) into a tangible, and individually felt experiences such as can be seen in their
depictions of growing cells or celestial bodies.
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Wols' painting, It's All Over the City (see Figure 1), for instance, depicts vibrant swirling
black calligraphic lines, extending from the hollow center like a nebula. In the shades of brown
and yellow, the bright blue wave points and the blue-green background create a microscopic
molecular world, bursting out huge, deconstructed energy, “his concern for the minutiae and
physicality of the natural world, wedded to a kind of Taoist modesty that resists the outsize
demonstrations of self-typical of his peers” (Butler 2013).
Figure 1: Untitled; also known as It’s All Over The City, by Wols (1913-1951)
1946-47
https://artblart.com/tag/wols-its-all-over-the-city/
Similarly, Hartung’s painting, T-50 Painting 8 (see Figure 2) makes reference to a style of
writing that represents an attempt to understand, to make tangible, and to make personal an
impersonal, intangible world.
1950
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/1618
Perhaps more so than the painting by Wols, Hartung’s painting is organized in the
application of the materials. The various shaped swatches of colour are ordered in such a way
that they have the appearance of being laid out like a garden or an untilled field. This rational
control of the bold lines combined with the frantic movement of the thin lines is something that I
looked to implement in the more atmospheric-inspired Chinese landscape elements of my
paintings.
Comparing the contemporary works of Western abstract painters with the spiritual
connotations and philosophical content in Chinese landscape art, my work aims to synthesize a
visual language that speaks to the complexity of the micro and macro worlds that coexist in the
landscape. My series of paintings contains a virtual, quiet, and ethereal spirit, representative of
different fragmented scenes of the landscape on different scales. Combining elements from
Eastern and Western artistic processes provided me with dual entry points so that I could cater
for both Eastern and Western viewers, and especially viewers who sit (as I do) somewhere
between the two poles of East and West in their appreciation of paintings. In offering access into
my paintings for a diverse range of viewers, I aim to facilitate an experience that extends beyond
surface level differences to find commonalities in my audiences, promotes a reverence for the
natural world, and stimulates the realization of our responsibility to protect it.
1.4.2 Materials
Throughout my MFA program, I used ink wash painting as the primary medium to
address my research inquiry. This material investigation developed over the course of the
program in tandem with my research. I largely used this medium to convey my concern about the
human relationship with the environment through abstract landscape images. For me, landscape
painting is all about thinking through history and into contemporary life; it is a way to establish
connections between traditions and modernity.
Landscape ink wash painting has been revered through multiple dynasties in China’s
history and is considered to have entered its golden age in the Song Dynasty (between 960–
1279), becoming mainstream during this period. As Shaw (1998, as cited in Leung 2020, 209)
suggests, “Chinese landscape painting […] is literally a painting of mountains and water, both of
which are material and tangible features of nature. Chinese painting is closely related to the Zen
Buddhist and Taoist ideals of total concentration in the act of the very moment, and harmony
between man and nature.” It involves brush and ink on paper or silk and uses disciplined
brushstroke skills that are required for calligraphy to animate the paintings’ subjects.
In searching for a way to better convey my concerns about the environment, I turned to
my daily life and reflected upon my own environmental footprint. Due to the pandemic, masks
have become a commonplace item and, as a result of their widespread and often mandatory use,
they have become a new aspect of our disposable culture. The material used in the disposable
masks is very light. The environmental impact of disposable masks is potentially large, as their
10
production generates pollution, they result in increased litter, and, if they are not properly
disposed of (especially in coastal regions), they are likely to end up in the ocean (Prata, Silva,
Duarte, and Rocha-Santos 2021). I began to think about how I could adapt my artistic processes
to confront the viewer more directly with the issue of masks littering the environment.
Thus, I began making abstract ink wash landscape paintings in a smaller size and, once
they had dried, I folded them in a way that mimicked…
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