"Achromatic Ripples" is Dong Dawei's most recent effort at Space Station. It is a continuation of the development of his body of work from last year's exhibition "Repetition and Multiplicity". This exhibition presents Dong Dawei's experiment with marker pen on paper, from an accidental ink stain to an impeccable technical scheme.

Dawei continues in his recent drawings to employ obstruction and dogma as basic driving force. Through a personal effort to cope and wrestle with obstructions, he strives to invent a new technique, not to achieve specific goals, he has no preconceived objectives; instead, to discover and comb through the possibilities that might have been otherwise overlooked. Thus what he meant by technique is a primitive kind, which is not particularly useful but instrumental to imagination and presents him curious new angles to see the familiar.

In the recent series of drawings created with marker on paper, there is only one chance to do it right. The artist's hand is kept as still as possible, while scrutinizing the growing stain to control timing, once the marker is lift off paper surface, the ink stain continue to grow until it just touches the previous one and stops. No adjustments is possible once marker and paper have made contact; the result would remain mysterious until the backside is revealed. Taking a long breath, from the first touch to last, Dawei is like a primitive hunter, bending the bow to take aim, waiting, let fly of the arrow, look on as arrow flies in the air until it reaches the quarry. Eventually he leaves no room for error. All unpredictable irregularities in the real world must be responded and everything considered. During Dawei’s reconfiguration of reality, his own shift of will is the center of focus, not the accumulation of empirical skill. Dawei chose to stay invisible in his own work. Between real and virtual, conceptual and visible worlds, idea is the flying arrow, clarity equals range.

*image (left)
© Dong Da Wei
courtesy of the artist and Space Station