Appearance of crosses 94-11

Before becoming an artist, Ding Yi worked at a printing press, where he discovered reference crosses used to balance documents.

ln 1988, they were to take centre stage in his artistic vocabulary, as he strove to free himself from bath traditional Chinese culture and from Western modernism. Initially achieved using geometric instruments, Ding Yi then started sketching them freehand, with a more chaotic outcome. He used chalk or charcoal on rough canvas, exploring the material's resistance. This painstaking, meditative technique originates in Zen calligraphy.