Medicine and Meridians: A Chinese Artist’s View of Body and Spirit

Artists have actually been drawing motivation from folklore and primitive beliefs to develop murals, masks, and routines throughout human history. Guo Fengyi, an artist from Shaanxi province, was one such artist who brought this time-honoured practice into the modern. She never ever got official training in great arts, the skilled artist produced hundreds of stretching scroll paintings as an escape from her persistent disease and a method to reveal herself. Her work is plentiful with magical aspects drawn from Chinese folklore, ancient Taoist cosmology (such as the 9 palaces and 8 trigrams), and standard medical diagrams. The artist’s works are now being showcased at an exhibit entitled “Cosmic Meridians” at Beijing’s Long March Space art gallery till March 26. The “Diagram of the Human Nervous System” series, with detailed line work that comes together to form peculiar-looking organisms, provides a down-to-earth conception of nature rooted in conventional culture. It makes up works called after natural components, such as “Analytical Diagram of the Sun Seen from a Distance in the State of Qigong” and “Bagua Diagram of the Moon Seen from a Distance,” along with works that mythologize genuine individuals, such as “Goddess Guo Fengyi” and “Suiren the Fire Maker.” Guo’s work has actually left lots of captivated considering that she died in 2010, as the secret of her work will permanently stay unsettled. Her modest background made her an outsider in the elitist modern art world. Guo was born in the city of Xi’an in 1942 and lost her dad at the age of 3. She aimed to study significant arts, extreme truths avoided her from pursuing her dream, leaving her with no option however to take a routine task at a plastic factory. Due to the gruelling nature of her work, she established serious arthritis and was required to retire at the age of 39. As discomfort and extended sleeping disorders damaged her body, she started to study conventional Chinese medication, discovering the 5 representatives from Yijing, or the “Book of Changes,” and the meridians of the body while practicing qigong, a conventional Chinese medication recovery practice. These practices supplied her with some convenience and relief. Art manager Lucienne Peiry discovered that Guo started attracting her journal as early as 1989. Her early works mainly include constant, recurring lines looking like heart rates, which together form unclear shapes. In addition to her journal, Guo would likewise doodle on old calendars and her kid’s workout books, utilizing simply a couple of felt pointer marker pens. When she required more than one page to extend the thin and thick lines, she would stick numerous sheets together to form a scroll so that she might keep illustration. By utilizing daily products such as calendars and note pads, Guo showed a strong desire to produce. She when stated: “I do not feel any pressure to develop art, and I do not wish for approval or compliments from anybody.” In her 20 years of creative development, Guo produced countless illustrations. Those showcased in the exhibit were produced in between 1989 and 2006. Her distinct design produces the impression that the characters in her illustrations are continuously altering and broadening, as if they might jump off the wall anytime. After acquiring acknowledgment in the modern art world, Guo was welcomed to participate in the Long March job in 2002 and consequently held her solo exhibits there. She then started to utilize much better quality products, such as coloured inks and xuan paper, a kind of rice paper. Her illustrations include irregular, constant lines like body meridians that radiate external from a set point. In these illustrations, faces are generally vertically balanced and, like poker cards, can be taken a look at upside down. The style of each piece– such as duality represented by conventional cultural signs like the sun and the moon, or yin and yang– is typically rendered clearly in text that lies in between the lines. Similar to her practice of qigong, Guo’s innovative procedure belonged to a routine. Her illustrations portray visions motivated by these legendary practices. These illustrations look like mazes or historic artifacts, though the audience will never ever have the ability to discover responses to the secrets. One can just let their creativity run amok based upon the pieces. By discussing magical custom, Guo’s extremely unique art work advises us of the relationship in between human and nature. Translator: Lewis Wright; editors: Elise Mak and Ding Yining. (Header image: “Level of Guo Fengyi’s Qigong Practice,” by Guo Fengyi, 1992. Thanks To Long March Space).