Collages

Collage 1

In this collage, an exploration of different pathways is created. Different pathways makes relationship to the surrounding environment in the garden, for example an irregular rocky path is built around ponds or rocks to create a natural walkway, where regular pavements are built for a corridor or around plantations. The photos I used has shown a relationship of the paths with other elements such as water and rocks, which also expresses the relationship between different types of pathways, such as how an irregualr path connects to a bridge by smooth rock stairs.

Collage 2

A continuity is expressed through collaging a series of bridges leading to a background. Although the bridges in this collage are all the same one and the path is imaginary, you could sense how the view changes when you walk through the bridges and the pavillion. Moreover, this collage also represents how different paths and buildings relate to the water. Buildings are often built above water and allow water to flow under it, where bridges are made in a zig-zag shape in order to let visitors see different views when they walk pass the bridge.

Collage 3

This collage in made by three layers, which is lead a a long pathway. In Chinese gardens, a path may have a lot of diversions and they often joins back again in another point. You can see how the path leads through the layer and meeting again at the back, which express how the path makes visitors to go to a certain point for a certian view, and also adds interest in gardens as there are more than one path for visitors to see.

I tried to use the original rectangular shape of the photos in the collage, so that the straight agles of the edges has a contrast with the organic cured pathways in the photos.

Collage 4

This collage is made up of photos in Zhuozhengyuan. The first thing I wanted to do in this collage is about the door arches, which expressed by a series of doorways to reveal a seneary behind. Then I thought it is very empty to put only the layers of doors so I added the paths and clouds, which isn’t very nice.

The above four collages all expressed, no matter as the subject or object, a sense of walkway. It seems that I’m stuck with this type of collage, and it pulled my works back without any breakthrough.

Therefore I wanted some change, which helped me to explore different techniques, and eventually all the colle afterwards are made in a different style than the ones before.

Collage 5

The most interesting place I’ve seen in Zhuozhengyuan is the yuanyanguan where the coloured windows worked with normal ones to create visual interest. Moreover, in Chinese gardens, a still water pond looks like a mirror that reflect the scenery on top. However, when wind blows the reflection became blurry and could not be seen. My purpose of this collage is to explore the same idea with two images, cut into squares and placing them such that it shows as a still picture of a view and a scattered reflection of that image.

Collage 6

A Chinese garden consists of several elements, which are rocks, pathways, water and architectures. My collage explores this relationship through an abstract idea, where I played a game of Tetris with my photos. This collage is made up of 4 photos, one about rockery, one about a pond, one about a pathway and one of architecture. The photos are cut into different Tetris cubes and arranging into a rectangle. This is to show how these different elements are closely interconnected to each other.

Collage 7

This collage consists of two roof tile pictures taken at Huqiu. One is a normal roof and one with a lot of leaves covering it. The interesting thing is that these two roofs taken are not far from each other, which makes me think of the contrast between the two. I cut the two photos into equal segments and arranging them in order, therefore a elegant collage is made. The sequence makes the collage view as two pictures as well as a whole. However, as the two photos are in a small scale, the overall collage seems empty around the edge, which also inspires me in making the last collage.

Collage 8

Walls in Chinese gardens serve more than a separating device. Large openings and perforated wall openings are made to capture certain views in the garden. This collage is made in exploring the characteristic of walls by placing some window openings on the foreground and a series of roof in the background, so a sense of a wall is created on the lower negative space. The openings leave a small view of the building in the back, which represents how openings are left for showing a view.

Collage 9

This collage is similar to the collage about the roof tile, but with a different approach.

Because the roof collage was a bit empty, this collage uses more photos so that it has a better overall view. Moreover, the tower is recomposed by the photos of the tower in different viewpoints, therefore the collage has a number of angles and shading effects, which you may get a sense that these photos are taken from different dates(where it isn’t).