Bingbing Huang

Chakras symbolised, coloured and visualised

Bingbing Huang is a textile artist and womenswear designer from China.

For her MA she has explored her experiences with meditation. She describes how being immersed in repetitive action can lead her to a state of meditation: "I can string beads for hours; I like to make small things.” By immersing the body in repetitive hand actions such as beading and crocheting and working with small objects and fine materials, like glass beads and lightweight thread Bingbing finds herself comforted and supported. She is keen to share this feeling of calmness through the objects she makes. The depth of the meditative theme is explored in her work through a continuous study of textile forms and colours.

In my work I convey my meditative experience through the use colour and pattern. With an emphasis on both colour and pattern feeling fluid. In the final project, I took inspiration from chakra yoga and created a textile installation of beaded hanging panels. The essence of chakra yoga is that each chakra is unique yet exists in a body energy, circular and balanced.

I used the chakra meditation patterns as a basis for my designs. Developing my work through a series of colour and material studies. The colour energy of the beaded textiles is linked together and attributed to the spirit and the body, achieving a state of balance.

The fluidity of body, spirit, light, and colour is expressed.

In my creative process, I often work with bead materials and colours to find the most appropriate way to express my thoughts and feelings. During this process, I often need to think calmly about how to achieve a balance of materials and colours to achieve the best artistic effect. I think this experience has made me a patient and attentive person and has made me more perceptive to small details that balance composition.

Meditative visual textiles

It is good practice to work out the position and material of each bead from the design to create a coloured draft of the beaded fabric. This ensures that my design is rendered accurately and makes a consistent effect with my final fabric.

When calculating the position and material of each bead, I need to consider the material and colour of the beads, as well as how they are spaced and arranged between them. Achieving a visual hierarchy of fabrics with circularly diffused backgrounds and chakra patterns

bead meditation mixed-media visual-art