Reveries Beyond Life

This project explores ancient Chinese philosophical views on life, death, and transformation through atmospheric mixed media illustrations. At the centre hangs the vertical scroll
painting surrounded by the five illustrations from Meditation Anthology, creating a meditative space that sparks curiosity about the nature of existence. Documentation of my research and inspiration from cultural relics is presented in the form of a sketchbook to provide art historical context.

The vertical scroll painting imagines a spiritual journey through different cosmological realms after death. It is grounded in research into historical belief systems in the world beyond death, including Han dynasty cosmology, levitation of Daoist immortal, and Buddhist spatial imagination of the world e.g. Pure Land and Mount Sumeru. Through visualising, juxtaposing and reimagining these belief systems, the hanging scroll translates their symbolic structures into a poetic visual narrative for contemporary audiences. Although the spiritual journey is reimagined from my own perspective based on cultural evidence, the aim is also to evoke viewers’ personal imagination and reflection on questions of the world beyond.

In the composition of the scroll painting, I mapped the spiritual journey into different fluid stages, juxtaposing different belief systems in a coherent narrative structure. The first stage is earthly existence at the bottom. The second stage is the ascent through the celestial realm, where the fixed form of the spirit dissolves into pureforces of Yin and Yang, or “Qi” forms, and moves upward along the Fusang Tree. The Fusang Tree is associated with the sun and new life, with auspicious birds resting on its branches. The next stage is past the heavenly threshold with a Daoist symbol of Yin and Yang at the centre to represent cosmic order, when rebirth from the lotus bud (astold in Buddhism) takes place in the meanwhile. The final stage is integration with the cosmos, the ultimate state of eternal light, silence, or emptiness in Buddhism.

As the color gradually turns to pink and warmer tones, it symbolizes the spiritualtransition from an earthly world (physical death, Yin energy) to the realm of immortals (rebirth, Yang energy), with the pink Fusang tree concentrating most of the sun’s Yang energy. Visual elements including the auspicious birds were derived from symbolic patterns identified in research.