Rayna Li, Illusions of Perfect Brightness 圓明幻景,
2020
Woodblock print on paper
Grounded in art historical research, my work focuses on unearthing and (re)constructing social biographies for museum artifacts. While many consider the so-called ‘decorative arts’ to be of no more than aesthetic value, I find myself continually drawn towards these ‘superfluous things’, to their sumptuous surfaces and silenced stories. In particular, I am interested in bringing renewed significance to art objects that embody transcultural exchange by exploring aspects of their liminal status.
My current project spotlights a 230-year-old automaton from the former Qing royal collection. A British-Swiss collaboration designed to cater to Chinese imperial taste, the object reminds me that understanding transcultural artworks demands more than an awareness of the Chinese and ‘Western’ cultural contexts as separate entities. In grappling with the notion of interculturality, my interest arrives at the Gestalt effect. I give voice to the forgotten yet momentous imperative behind the object’s creation through a carefully constructed map of visual clues. I take jigsaw woodcut to be an ideal medium and metaphor for my vision. I entertain the seeming paradox inherent in this technique — while the colors are physically separated onto multiple matrices, they are effectively designed to juxtapose, interlock, and overlap in the same image, thereby creating a complex interplay of both colors and concepts.
Thus informed by academic and theoretical concerns, my practice injects my thinking, and more importantly, feeling toward these object-witnesses of history into the larger discourse through visual expression.
Attributed to Timothy Williamson, “Gilt Bronze Musical Clock with Calligrapher Automaton (detail) 銅鍍金寫字人鐘,” c. 1780-1800 CE, gilt bronze structure with decorations, 231cm (height), 77x77cm (base), from The Palace Museum, Beijing. Photo by Rayna Li, August 7. 2021.