I am captivated by the interplay of movement and cultural heritage. My wears bear the tales of Chinese ancient empires and the operatic stage. I was born and raised in Beijing and found it, along with the rest of China, steeped in traditions that significantly influence my art today. My career as an artist started on the dance floor. Studying Chinese Folk Dance at Beijing Capital Normal University helped me establish a certain kind of understanding and respect for the subtlety of the movement patterns. This past, together with my subsequent work as a professional ballroom dancer in the United States, defines the organic movement inherent in my jewelry design.
I discovered my artistic ID the first time I translated the dance beat into materials. Every sculpture I design is a dance of metal and stone and a snapshot of a movement. Similarly, the contours of a bracelet may represent the eloquence of the Chinese opera costumes as the sleeve and the patterns of a necklace may represent the steps of a Chinese dance. So far my main working materials are metals – copper and brass, although, I also use jade and other semiprecious stones. These materials enable me to achieve the endurance of the antiquities with the liveliness of modern practice. This is why some of the processes I like most cope with the depth of Chinese symbolic meanings.
My more recent projects have been based on creating a new vision of specific relics of China. The artworks include a fan-shaped necklace with opera masks to show and hide. An article in the form of a crown reflects the unpopularity of the imperial style in jewelry. In those pieces, I try to build a connection between history and modernity and between Asia and America. I tend to read and write in the curvatures of my jewelry. Each item is not only an adornment but also an artifact, sociocultural symbol, stimulus for discussion, and piece of art history every time it is worn. My Creativity process can best be described as involving research and fine-tuning. I have to try and innovate a little more into the concept of what is commonly known as metalwork without forgetting where ideas originate from. In doing so, it is a dream to make jewelry that embellishes the physical body and the spirit, putting into the pieces a call to those wearing and observing as if they are dancing with time and culture every time they look at the piece.
