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Fengyi Guo

About the Numerology of the Huangjijing, 1990

Colored ink on paper
124.8 x 140.9 cm, Framed: 146 x 162 x 4.5 cm

Guo Fengyi started to draw after practicing qigong for health; during these meditative states she experienced special visions that were put down on paper. Much of the subject matter of her drawings, as well as the concepts and physical structures she uses come from traditional Chinese philosophy, myths and medicine. Her claim to art is her coherent expressive style and consistent formal pictorial structure. The drawings are ghostly, uncanny to the degree of inspiring fear. The subjects she covers include mythical figures, historical anecdotes, astrology, geomancy and medical theory, which in themselves constitute separate cultural spheres each complete with sophisticated narratives. By mixing these aspects of cultural knowledge in her work, Guo’s drawings become the meeting point of history and myth, knowledge and mysteries. From the perspective of Guo the value of her works goes beyond that of art. As a phenomenon of psychology, the “truth” of Guo’s works depends on the coherency and substance of the symbolic world they present, and the more they reveal of the workings of the mind, the more valuable. But from Guo’s own viewpoint, the contents of her diagrams are literal “truths”; they are messages from above, revealed to her during special mental states.

*1942 Xi'an, Sha'anxi Province, China