Jinya Zhao
Evoking Sensory Touch by Blown Glass
Summary
This practice-based research challenges the existing problem raised by Daphne and Charles Maurer of we are losing the multisensory ability as an adult and proposes the concept of the “synesthetic touch” (i.e., by enhancing the visual experience of the blown glass sculpture enable audiences to follow their own experiences from vision to touch), and to reconnect and re-invoke that ability through a multisensory approached to my blown glass artwork.
Additional info
Born and raised in China, Jinya Zhao received her BA in 2017 from the China Academy of Art and her MA and MRes from the Royal College of Art in 2019 and 2021. In 2019, Jinya was invited as Artist-in-Residence in Southern Illinois University in USA, and in 2022 Taoxichuan Glass Studio in Jingdezhen, China. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the Royal College of Art, London.
Jinya sees glass as an ideal medium to explore the themes of environment, emotions, and personal experiences. Her work is collected by museums and galleries expanding from but not limited to Prague Gallery of Czech Glass, Qingdao Art Museum, Southern Illinois University, Ulster Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum; her work is exhibited internationally and she is having her solo exhibition at the Liuli China Museum in Shanghai, China in 2023.
Introduction
My research asks the question of how the phenomena unique to blown glass can make connections between the maker and audiences to communicate and prompt connections to memory and the imagination by using qualities relating to the sublime such as colour, obscuring and revealing techniques, and form. The key developments of this research are the establishment of a knowledge base of vision and touch, an understanding of the relationship between make and audience, and solutions on to the multisensory connections.
Utilising the theorical study as its mode of inquiry, this thesis investigates the complex tacit knowledge present in following artist’s work, particularly as it exists in the relationship between the practice of drawing and glassblowing and applies it to the understanding of the sublime quality in blown glass. This investigation is grounded in Modernist abstraction and colour theory (Josef Albers) and the writings of poems. The atmospheric paintings of J.M.W. Tuner and Mark Rothko’s boundaries of colour also inform this research, supplemented with the concept of vast and infinite space in traditional Chinese paintings (Ma Yuan). The installations of James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson and Antony Gormley, supported with photography of Maarten Vromans and the theories of philosopher Edmund Burke also provide theoretical framing and contextual reference.
Within the research a concatenated or linked methodology evolved that interwove theory and practice. Using techniques that incorporated my own focus on the drawing, the breath and body movement through glassblowing, practical investigations led to the creation of sculptural objects in blown glass that aimed to engage the body’s sense of vision more fully through a progressive experience of grounded sensuality. In the studio the primary research method comprises personal experimentation with watercolour painting and drawing, varied applications of colour, sandblasting, and layering in blown glass. Tests are undertaken to explore how conducive levels of sublime quality might be achieved, and to evoke sensory connections. The interplay between imagination, observation, and memory, are contextually entwined with colour theory, aesthetic research, and the descriptive language of the sublime. By showing the viewers with the process and final works of blow glass, they build sensory connections between the work and nature.
Drawing the sublime by exploring colour, layering, obscuring, and revealing techniques together, all aimed at evoking memory and imagination through synesthetic medium, and providing a method beyond the visual, and to connect with the unreachable.
