Lei Su, b.1994, studied BA Drawing at the Camberwell College of Arts, before coming to study MA Print at the Royal College of Art.
She lives and works in Beijing, China.
Her practice is multi-disciplinary, taking in drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, and sculpture.
The most upright cup is the orange, which dances on the tree without spilling a drop of water.
-------- Cheng Gu
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Our skin is the perfect vessel, soft and delicate, but it also holds everything in the body, keeping life flowing and the body moving.
My work has always been my way of expressing my emotions, problems, illness and then exorcizing them.
I believe that body as a symbol is not only a method of self-narrative, it is also a way of recording and healing from my mental conditions, illnesses, and emotional feelings by using synaesthesia. It is also the implication of a self-deprecating metaphor. The body serves as a narrative situation for me, one of yearning for goodness, one of reconciliation with illness, and even for spiritual perfection.
I’m focused on art therapy. Artistic healing is a vehicle for me to express my emotions and connect with the spiritual world. I am struggling with various illnesses and pains, and creating art can soothe the pain of these changes. I hope to use this way to heal more people.
'That which others hear or read of, I left and practised my myself; they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholizing.'
----- Robert Burton
Art is both the conduit towards well-being and the language of the dis-ease/disease health discourse, which plays important functions for psychology and the arts in general. It has also allowed me to find a way to reinterpret the language of my drawings to explore more of the connection between the artist and the audience, and how to heal the self while warming more people.
This work uses cyanotypes to expose X-ray material Lei Su received from other patients during her hospital stay. Having based exposure times on the duration of her treatment sessions, means the shades of the work are not the same. The rinsing process also smells of hospital sterile water.
