Wall
This series focuses on urban walls, photographed frontally and flattened within the frame to observe the accumulated colors, textures, graffiti, signs, and traces of time. The wall is not only an architectural boundary, but also a kind of urban message board, recording the visual layers shaped by both human activity and natural erosion.
When photographing walls, I try to disregard the spatial Z-axis as much as possible, bringing the image closer to flatness and allowing the wall’s surface to fill the entire frame so that the viewer’s attention remains on the surface. Through this way of seeing, the wall moves beyond its role as part of a building and becomes a flat object carrying color, shape, material, texture, and traces. I try to observe the information accumulated on these surfaces: graffiti, advertisements, Spring Festival couplets, slogans, decorations, and various marks left by human activity. At the same time, time leaves traces of its own—rust, peeling, mottling, stains, and fading—giving the wall a quality that lies somewhere between everyday documentation and abstract painting. To me, these walls resemble message boards within the city, as well as images shaped jointly by the passage of time and human activity. Over long periods of use, neglect, repair, and erosion, different traces overlap and gradually accumulate into the surfaces we see today.
