The beauty of collision

Author

Yixuan Pan, Rhode Island School of DesignFollow

Date of Award

Spring 6-1-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Painting

First Advisor

Kevin Zucker

Second Advisor

Angela Dufresne

Third Advisor

Jackie Gendel

Abstract

As a Chinese artist living in the United States, I’m researching the integration of Eastern and Western aesthetics, as well as the loss of identity that can occur when visual cultures begin to assimilate. My work endeavors to locate the connection between Eastern and Western arts through my own memories and experiences. From the age of five, I have studied calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting with my grandfather, who was a calligraphy professor. Today, I use the shapes of traditional Chinese hand fans as symbols of youth, drawing from memories of my mother and grandmother brandishing the fans to help me fall asleep and dream. I paint American coastal landscapes on the fans in a Chinese ink style, combining two aesthetics and places. Manipulating these memories of childhood while negotiating my adult life in the United States is how I question a sense of home and place in a multi-centered society. I also used various subjects from differing class, gender, disability, occupation, age, and religious expressions of Asian immigrant groups for my painting. This allows audiences to access the often divergent and complex ways Asian Immigrants live in the states during this period of discrimination.

In this thesis, I will discuss whether Chinese painting can break thousands of years of tradition in terms of materials, expressions, forms, painting language, painting themes, and maintain relevance in today's art world. I will also study the rapid development of science and technology and the background of this era in the information age and make individual judgments and innovation requirements for traditional Chinese painting's future development.

Comments

View exhibition online: Yixuan Pan

Recommended Citation

Pan, Yixuan, "The beauty of collision" (2021). Masters Theses. 801.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/801

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.