A student of Yu Youhan , Ding Yi adapted the dots and strokes practiced by his master in his Circle Series into a vocabulary based on crosses and dots for his ever-going series of works entitled " Appearance of crosses " .
His systematic application of traced crosses on canvas or paper seems to recall by his approach and his concentration, the practice of the calligrapher. There is a meditative attitude , from the artist by his patient and scholarly exercise , but also from the viewer when contemplating the artwork .The geometric spaces delimited by the crosses recall the squares and double squares in which each sign must be inscribed in the calligraphic discipline . Ding Yi vocabulary of repetitive binary signs + - + - + - + - + - + looks like Morse code or a software language . He can be considered as a calligrapher of the 21st century , practising at the time of the information technologies where words are translated into a binary language ,and then converted into electric or optical impulses so as to travel faster . His paintings are mainly black ( the colour of ink) and red ( the colour of the seal' cinnabar) covered with his undeciphered abstract language of signs . Back |
Ding Yi, Appearance of crosses 95-B39, 1995, Watercolor and Mixed media on canvas, 56 x 75cm
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