STUDIES
SF Street View
Aug. 2024
Watercolor on paper
12 x 8 in
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A street view in San Francisco seen from a moving cable car.
Eating A Cake
Jan. 2023
Watercolor on paper
12 x 8 in
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The work reimagines an architectural section detail as a cake, deliberately collapsing distinctions between scale, material, and function. Elements typically read as structural — layers, joints, membranes — are transformed into edible forms, shifting technical precision into sensory imagination.
By blurring the boundaries between construction detail and domestic object, the work questions how scale governs meaning, and how familiar systems can be re-perceived through acts of substitution and play.
The Weaver of Space
Jan. 2023
Watercolor on paper
12 x 8 in
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This watercolor explores a moment in which weaving becomes a way of building. Threads extend from the figure’s hands and gradually transform into bridges, stairways, and elevated passages, connecting buildings as the fabric flows through space.
The image plays with shifts in scale, where a soft, hand-made gesture expands into an architectural landscape. Construction here is imagined not as something rigid or monumental, but as a fluid process shaped by care, movement, and continuity.
Butterfly Mother
Jul. 2023
Guizhou Batik / Indigo (Isatis root) dye
16 x 16 in
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The image is derived from butterfly motifs found in oral myths of ethnic groups in Southwest China. In Dong culture and neighboring communities, the butterfly is often regarded as an origin figure associated with life, reproduction, and the emergence of natural order.
The composition combines the butterfly form with symmetrical structures, emphasizing enclosure, continuity, and protection rather than narrative illustration.
The work uses traditional batik techniques, with hand-applied wax lines defining the pattern. The ground color is produced through repeated dyeing with indigo extracted from Isatis root. Areas covered by wax remain undyed, creating the contrast between blue and white. Slight bleeding and irregular edges result from the interaction between plant dye and hand-applied resist, reflecting the material nature of the process.
Wax-resist Process
Line Drawing - Wax Application
Plant Dye (Leaf Imprinting)
Jul. 2023
Direct Plant Pigment Transfer
40 x 16 in
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This work is created by directly transferring pigment from plant leaves onto fabric using a process similar to imprinting. Instead of dyeing in a bath, the method relies on pressure to release natural pigments from the leaves onto the textile surface.
The image is not pre-designed; it is determined by the structure of the leaves, their fiber density, and moisture content. Variations in tone, edge clarity, and vein visibility remain unpredictable. The process treats the plant as an active agent rather than a passive material, preserving direct contact between plant and fabric as a recorded trace.
Wax-resist Process
Immersion Dyeing - The dye bath requires mountain spring water
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In plant-based dyeing, water quality directly affects color penetration and fixation. Mountain spring water is used because it is free from chlorine and chemical treatments commonly found in municipal tap water, which can interfere with plant pigments and reduce dye absorption.
Its relatively stable mineral content and mild pH support more consistent interactions between natural dyes, wax-resist areas, and textile fibers, helping maintain clear resist boundaries and even coloration during immersion dyeing.
Sun Drum
Jul. 2023
Guizhou Batik / Kudzu root dye
16 x 16 in
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The composition is structured around a radial form, referencing traditional Dong patterns associated with the sun, rhythm, and collective order. The central circle and outward-extending lines resemble a drum surface, emphasizing repetition, energy, and cyclical time. In Dong culture, solar imagery is closely tied to agricultural rhythms, ritual practices, and seasonal change.
Kudzu root is used as the primary dye material. Color fixation relies on repeated cycles of immersion and sun exposure rather than chemical mordants. Through multiple rounds of dyeing and drying under sunlight, the pigment gradually stabilizes and deepens. The resulting warm brown tone reflects the accumulation of time and process rather than a single application of color.
Fabric Assemblage
Jul. 2023
Batik and Plant-dyed Textiles
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Rather than emphasizing symbolic imagery, the piece focuses on material properties — weight, softness, thickness, and residual dye marks — as spatial elements.
Wax-resist Process
Wax Application - Finished Work
Tianjin City Slums Renovation 1
Jan. 2023
Colored clay model and iPad line drawing
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This drawing explores a speculative renewal of an urban district in Tianjin through spatial reorganization rather than demolition. Existing housing is preserved and reconfigured into clusters, while new programs are inserted selectively along a continuous landscape corridor that connects public spaces, daily life, and collective activities.
The work functions as a spatial narrative, examining how memory, architecture, and everyday use can coexist within a dense urban fabric.
Tianjin City Slums Renovation 2
Jan. 2023
Colored clay model and iPad line drawing
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This drawing examines how housing, cultural programs, and landscape can be reorganized into a layered urban composition. Collective housing with balconies and gardens, reused industrial structures, and newly introduced exhibition spaces are interconnected through circulation paths that encourage movement, encounter, and shared use.
Rather than emphasizing formal hierarchy, the work foregrounds everyday activity and social interaction, exploring how architectural elements and open spaces can support collective life within a compact urban fabric.
Road Trip 2020
Feb. 2022
Watercolor on paper
24 x 16 in
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Created in response to a shared journey during the summer of 2020, this work reflects on movement, companionship, and the way memory organizes itself through time.
Tension
2020
Watercolor on paper
12 x 8 in
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The work reflects an engagement with architecture not as a finished form, but as an ongoing negotiation between control, force, and imagination.
A Monster
2020
Watercolor on papaer
12 x 8 in
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This work treats architecture as a creature — its mass lifted above the ground by extended “limbs,” releasing space beneath for human presence.
A small human figure enters the scene as a playful counterpart, gently unsettling the structure’s authority and scale.