Lines Reflect, Shadows Write
What is man-made? What kind of cognition created our world? These phenomena and situations were verified by Aki Lumi with his photography, painting, design, etc.
In his representative works “The Garden”, decorations of the baroque church and the Hindu temple acted as the base, on this basis, Aki used hundreds of forests, plants and trees’ images to compound his own garden on paper on which those boscage and courtyard emerged, just like a horticulturist.
Aki’s Works, from another series “Trace”, were as precise and distinct as architecture and machine drawing but he drew with only compass and ruler. Lines extended and spread on paper and finally composed shapes which seem to have met before. Though created with technical instrument, the “Trace” series contained elements of painting and demonstrated the ultimate beauty pursued by Aki.
The birth of “Fracto-graph”, can be seen as the achievement from the analysis of “The Garden” and “Trace” and moving back and forth between these two series. In “Fracto-graph”, Aki focused on irregular figure and miraculous depth. Being paintings but photography, in “Fracto-graph” the artist drew and painted the small part of plants and buildings from “The Garden” which was like the reflection of the quivering light, the shape of changing shadow. Then, on this paper, like what he did in “Trace”, Aki repeatedly drew these inorganic lines with compasses and ruler in the man-made dimension almost pertinaciously. Finally lost in the depth and presented marvelous two-dimensional space. Additionally, in this exhibition, Aki widely used metal color he named reflect color and this reflection created another space dimension as well.
(Aki Lumi solo show, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai 2014)