THESIS STATEMENT

In the dimensional world people define, points are connected into lines, and surfaces consist of lines. Therefore, everything our eyes can perceive are two-dimensional curves (aka lines) in nature. Dancers are all about the curves of their muscles, great literature is written in strange symbols before they are given meanings, and the children, who are arguably the most intelligent age group, only draw with lines, even when they are trying to fill a block with colors. Other than a tesseract, which our eyes cannot capture yet, I cannot think of something that is not made of lines. For my thesis project, I want to explore the shapes and structures of objects around me from a fixed point of view, convert them into lines, and put them together to create a series of nine monochrome digital drawings.

The work process is simple; I used Procreate so I drew on my tablet. Rather than observing one object from several perspectives like Picasso, I looked closely at several objects from one perspective, and it is usually somewhere I feel comfortable sitting or leaning on, so I can sit there for a longer time. Rather than intentionally use color blocks like Rothko, I used only lines. In each drawing, I used matching harmonic colors on the color wheel with some adjustments on the brightness to create a balanced picture while still keeping the contrasts between the lines and the background. In this series of digital drawings, I try to use more complete lines and less short lines that are just floating around in order to avoid the “fragmentary” and “sketchbook-like” feeling. The method I used to look for the most essential lines to portray an object is to stare at it for an extended period of time. By the time I am ready to put what I observed into lines, I may forget the functionality of the particular object; I may forget who that belongs to; I may forget whether it needs to be repaired, cleaned up, or stored in the cabinet, because it becomes just lines. Lines are boring because it doesn’t involve saturation of colors or any special effects from the texture, but lines are also fascinating because they express so much with so little; they jump out of the paper and catch attention with their intricate pattern.

The main idea of this series of drawings can be very broad, but I also came up with an explanation that brings the drawing some physical functionality. Once the memory storing machine is invented, I can bring all the junk and all my useless objects with me. For some people, decluttering may be a part of their routine, but for the rest of the people, they like to store things with sentimental values. Because I am very used to my living environment, it may make me feel strange without them, so having them simplified into lines and stored digitally allow me to come back to this room and this lifestyle I used to have at my age. Anyways, I really want a self-cleaning room before all that happens.