FIELDWINDOW
Soil, porcelain, clay, ink, PVA, canvas
250*250*6cm
Shenzhen, China | 2013
This painting started with a fascination with the Chinese character 田 , pronounced 'tian'. Meaning field or farm, this geometric pictograph character is a stylised representation of divided land, viewed from above like a map. This character is present in the name of Shenzhen City's main financial district, Futian, translated as something like 'fortuitous/prosperous fields'.. With so much large scale and rapid development happening in the country on land that was until recently simply agricultural land, there are many new districts in cities being created with this character in their names. There feels something very bold and positive about the industrialisation and urbanisation development process, and I find it interesting how people's relationship to nature changes with this. For this painting I wanted to work on a large canvas to create a lifesize 'tian' character from spraying liquid porcelain, soil, clay and ink. For me there were references to both traditional ink painting and western oil painting.