The creative conceptualisation of the thesis “Direction • Symbol” stems from characteristics of ink wash painting, as well as thoughts from the Taoist philosophy and school of Zen, and is presented through drawings of crabs and road signs.
Symbols are often mainstream representations of objects created through simple and easily recognisable images or texts. The “direction” mentioned in the thesis refers to the unique sideway behaviour of crabs, which reminds one of the Chinese proverb “橫行霸道” (loosely translated into the phrase ‘riding roughshod over somebody or something’). The crabs and road signs serve a metaphor for life
; the author hopes to illustrate the problems and decisions a person may face while living and thus, to subsequently reflect and amend their choices through these illustrations.
The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter describes the research goals and objectives, research methods and research scope, while the second chapter highlights the reason behind the development of oriental painting during the late Tang dynasty, the aesthetics of ink wash painting, as well as ink wash paintings of aquatic creatures. The third chapter discusses the attributes of ink wash paintings of crabs painted by past and contemporary artistes using the features of ink wash paintings, and is followed by the fourth chapter, which recounts the author’s creative processes and analyses of her paintings. The final chapter concludes the thesis with a summary of thoughts regarding the research and suggestions for future research directions.
