Da Hua Lian Project Introduction

Da Hua Lian Array《大花脸阵》, a series of 64 pastel artworks, is to represent two Chinese cultural notations: Da-Hua-Lan (大花脸) and I Ching or Yi Jing (易经).

Da-Hua-Lan (大花脸) is visual notation - male role with colorful painted face in Peking Opera. I Ching or Yi Jing (易经) is virtuous notation – the DNA of Chinese culture . 5000 years ago, by observing Mother Nature ancient Chinese created a virtues system to keep balance in various changes.

In this series, each of 8 partial painted faces in a painting as visual notation carries a specific doctrine from I Ching or Yi Jing (易经) as virtue notation.

When I was little, like many kids I had a habit of drawing symbols subconsciously with a stone, a stake, or a chalk on ground, wallboard, papers and etc. This specific set of symbols flowed out from my mind via a pen to a notepad while I had nothing to do on a plane from West Palm Beach to White Plains on September 5, 2007. The thought drifted into 8 "arrays" with a series of 8 "elements". I love thinking and painting/coding in patterns.

After I got home, I put those drifted floating thought into a high level design or called architecture in software engineering. I created 8 “elements” by using my favorite Chinese art notation – Da-Hua-Lan (大花脸). Then I created 8 “frameworks” (or called drawings) based on the 8 “arrays” captured on my notepad as basic templates. I selected 8 colors (black, dark gray, light gray, white, red, green, yellow, and blue) for implementation (or painting). In addition, the classic change patterns - 易阵 sounds like YI Zhen (the 64 change patterns organized in either array or circle format) were adopted in the design.

Each painting would embed a figure – ancient symbol of six horizontal lines called Gua (卦) as well as Hexagram in English. Three stone stamps with two types of specific Chinese traditional ink, red and dark red, would be utilized in each painting include the series’ title stamp -大花脸阵 in dark red ink, my private collection stamp –杨泓藏 in red ink, and my penname stamp –木水作 in red ink.