Print (MA)
Danbin Cao
Danbin Cao (b. 1995, Hangzhou, China) is a Chinese artist living and working in both London and Hangzhou. Danbin finished her BA in oil painting and graduated from the China Academy of Art in 2017. In 2018 she enrolled at the Royal College of Art to continuing her art training as a printmaker.
Danbin’s work consists primarily of paintings, prints, and installations. Her practice combines various materials and methods revolving around the boundary between illusion and reality. She uses chaotic lines to create unclear images, allowing her to confront the controllability and uncontrollability of material. Danbin’s work often employs multiple forms of blurry figures organized together in random strokes. She tries to convey a sense of unclear boundary with the hazy feeling revealed by the image and its materials. Her use of fragile materials, as well as her installation techniques, are intended to blur both the definition of visual elements and the boundaries between varying emotional states.
A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal . —Carl Jung
Dreams, for me, are like an oasis of serenity amid chaos, and a place where the line between reality and unreality is extremely thin. The time and space in most dreams are distorted and non-linear. Their events are not logical, and even the perspective of the dreamer can keep changing. In contrast to this, people can clearly remember the feelings and emotions in their dreams. Many people will use lots of affective piecemeal vignettes to describe the texture of their dreams. As memories of specific events in the dream fade over time, this mnemonic texture is always remembered. That is what I focus on, not the cause of dreams or the meaning behind dreams, but the perception of dreams as a boundary between the real and the unreal. I use the form of visual expression to convey emotive significance from dreams without ‘instructing’ the viewers directly. The mnemonic texture of dream is fragile but gentle; it exists on the edge of the real and the unreal. The shadow of the light and the trace of sunshine expose the flow of time, which in these dreams is also subtle and slow.
I am in the water
I am in the water —
In this moving-image, the figures in the painting appear looming due to the sun's light spots, and finally disappear in the ripples of the water flow.
Medium:
Line thread, pencil on fleece non woven geotextileSize:
620 × 897 mm
Dust it off
Dust it off —
There was a time after my dog passed away when I was overwhelmed by my buried grief. He was like my family and accompanied me from the beginning of my memory for over 19 years. His passing was a huge blow to me. In order to escape from the harsh reality of losing him, I chose to fall asleep and pin my hopes of meeting him again on my dreams. This work is drawn from those dreams. In my painting, my dog appears in the form of a small child. I stand knee-deep in the river holding his hand.
Medium:
Line thread, pencil and crayon on fleece non woven geotextileSize:
620 × 897 mm
A Scene at the Sea
A Scene at the sea
I've been consciously combining my work, itself, with the space and time in which it is located, both indoors and outdoors, to let the light, sunshine, and shadow give my works variation, texture, and tactility, and to let the feelings from my works become poetic, finding a resonance and vibration between inner world and outside worlds. From that point, the borders or edges of the conscious and unconscious experience become muddled, so that the dreams appear real, and reality appears ethereal.
Medium:
Line thread, pencil and crayon on fleece non woven geotextileSize:
620 × 897 mm
Underwater
Underwater
I use a large number of streams and water wave textures in my works. Figures that appear in my drawings usually turn their backs on the audience and look blurry. These elements themselves do not have specific meaning. I use them to describe and account for the origin and locus of pictorial effect and signification in the experience of vision as an embodied and meaningful existential activity. These elements are things that make viewers think of something that directly adds to the impression of feeling.
Medium:
Line thread, pencil and crayon on fleece non woven geotextileSize:
620 × 897 mm
Up on melancholy hill
Up on melancholy hill
That is why I choose the natural surroundings. It will not be defined in some specific context or background. Nature represents a kind of absolute reality. It is independent of artificial existing. The sound of birds and the noise of human voices make it more real, yet the painting, itself, existing in this space is like a boundary which is full of uncertainties and fragilities. It doesn’t belong to any field or realm. But it still relies on and is based on reality.
Medium:
Line thread, pencil and crayon on fleece non woven geotextileSize:
620 × 897 mm
I am still in water
I am still in water
In the computer era, human perception is gradually virtualized, and people’s perceptions of existence become thinner and thinner. The concept of a computer-dominated information society has become a reality: visual signs increasingly cover the world. Computer graphics create image that seem more realistic than the objects they portray. It all seems like people are immersed in a dream. The boundary between real and unreal is always unclear.
People’s stream of consciousness can be liken to a seemingly placid rivulet, while below the surface there is psycho-entanglement and the struggle of reason against sensibility.
In this moving image, the translucent painting hangs in mid-air, gently swaying with the wind, appearing ethereal in the mottled sunlight, as water is heard rippling, creating a dreamlike reality.
Medium:
Line thread, pencil and crayon on fleece non woven geotextileSize:
620 × 897 mm
A Bundle of Perception
A Bundle of Perception
A Bundle of Perception
I'm not trying to fix the overall shape of the installation, but looking for the best state they can form in different environments, so in different spaces these structures are stacked in completely different shapes. I think I am just an architect of the republic of my spirits, which is established by eternal core concepts, and relies on constant change and coherent thoughts.