The Dao Follows Nature The Manifestation

Inspired by the Daoist concept of Si Xiang (Four Phenomena), this work translates the cyclical transformation of yin and yang into a precise visual algorithm. Each quadrant of the composition symbolises one of the Four Phenomena - Taiyin (Greater Yin), Shaoyang (Lesser Yang), Taiyang (Greater Yang), and Shaoyin (Lesser Yin) - corresponding to stages in the moon's cycle from darkness to full illumination and back again.

The composition is generated through a binary matrix system modelled after the logic of the I Ching. Just as the 64 hexagrams arise from combining eight trigrams, the artist constructs 16 “double phenomena” by combining the four Si Xiang forms along horizontal and vertical axes. The matrix is ordered from binary 0-15, then reversed from 15-0, and overlaid - producing a visual field that appears minimal yet contains multiple layers of encoded logic.

Beneath its surface simplicity lies a structure of profound cosmological reasoning. The work embodies not emotional expression, but the visible trace of a metaphysical system: a geometry of alternation, interaction, and return. 

At first glance, New Phenomena resembles a soft grid of pale blue squares floating on a dark indigo field. The visual impression recalls Agnes Martin’s Night Sea (1963), yet its structure is not born from emotion or repetition, but from systemic recomposition through Daoist logic.

Each pale square is a piece of plant-dyed fabric, hand-sewn onto a uniformly dyed background. These units are not purely aesthetic choices, but representations of “Chong Xiang” (重象) - a system of 16 newly constructed graphic units derived from combinations of the Four Phenomena. Each Chong Xiang is a four-line structure, conceptually positioned between the trigram (three lines) and the hexagram (six lines) in the taxonomy of the I Ching. This visual system hints at the transitional process in Daoist theory: the unfolding of “two gives rise to three.”

Beyond its visual stillness lies a metaphysical experiment: What if time were restructured? What if a year had 16 months? New Phenomena invites the viewer to contemplate alternative cosmic configurations, built not on fantasy, but on the re-engineering of ancient logic.

Composed of sixteen vertical bars of varying width and colour, Vertical appears at first to be a minimalist exercise in rhythm and proportion. Yet beneath this visual clarity lies a layered configuration of cosmological codes drawn from both the Earlier Heaven and Later Heaven Bagua sequences.

Each bar is constructed from a rule-based system derived from trigram structures. The artist first designed a graphic language for eight trigrams using binary logic, then arranged them into two compositions: one following the Fuxi (Earlier Heaven) order, and the other the King Wen (Later Heaven) sequence. These two arrangements are then superimposed, creating a hybrid visual field where heaven and earth, number and image, law and form collide.

Unlike subjective abstraction, Vertical is not an expression of mood but a materialised system of translation - where Daoist logic meets textile form, and opposites are resolved through overlapping rather than opposition. What appears vertical is in fact layered. What seems minimal is deeply encoded.

This work is a structural homage and philosophical reconfiguration of Thira (1979-1980) by Brice Marden. While Marden’s work arose from gestural abstraction and personal symbolism, Min Zhang redirects the visual structure into a logic-based system grounded in Daoist cosmology.

The artist begins by analysing Marden’s original colour and compositional rhythm, then overlays a new framework derived from the eight trigrams of the I Ching. Each visual unit corresponds to a hexagram created by pairing two trigrams - following the Fuxi (Earlier Heaven) sequence: Qian, Dui, Li, Zhen above; Xun, Kan, Gen, Kun below. The resulting composition is not an interpretation, but a structural reconstruction.

Here, gesture gives way to rule, emotion to cosmology. Reconfiguration is not a revision, but a redirection: from abstract expression to ontological pattern, from painterly intuition to metaphysical grid.

This work continues the artist’s critical engagement with Brice Marden’s abstract paintings, specifically Number One (1983-1984). While Marden’s composition foregrounded intuitive gesture and symbolic layering, Min Zhang reconstructs its visual framework through the structural logic of the Later Heaven Bagua.

Each visual element in the piece corresponds to one of eight hexagrams, constructed by pairing trigrams derived from the King Wen (Later Heaven) sequence: Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen above; Xun, Li, Kun, Dui below. Through this method, colour and form are no longer expressive surfaces, but visual embodiments of cosmological relationships - an abstract re-inscription of “xiang” (象), the image-logic of the I Ching.

Reconstitution of Number One stands not as a revision of a painting, but as a reformulation of visual thought. It replaces intuitive abstraction with cosmological grammar. It asks not what a painting expresses, but what it reveals.

This work visualises the 64 hexagrams of the Fuxi (Earlier Heaven) sequence from the I Ching, using stitched vertical lines to represent each hexagram as a six-part binary structure. Each line encodes one of the hexagrams: blue segments for solid lines (yang), white segments for broken lines (yin), arranged from top to bottom.

Beginning with the pure-yin hexagram Kun (six broken lines, rendered as a fully white vertical bar), and proceeding in binary order to Qian (six solid lines, a fully blue bar), the artist assigns each of the 64 hexagrams to a stitched column. The final composition is the inversion of the sequence - flipped vertically for visual balance - revealing an abstract barcode of Daoist cosmology.

Earlier Manifestation is not an abstraction of form, but the embodiment of structure. It proposes that image can carry the logic of number, and that pattern can be a medium for cosmological transmission. This is not “art inspired by the I Ching”; it is the I Ching, made textile. 

This work mirrors the structure of Earlier Manifestation but is built on a different cosmological foundation: the King Wen (Later Heaven) sequence of the I Ching. Like its counterpart, it represents all 64 hexagrams through vertical stitched lines, each consisting of six segments - pink for yang (solid lines) and green for yin (broken lines).

Beginning with Qian (pure yang) and continuing in the canonical sequence of the Later Heaven arrangement, each hexagram is translated into a colour-coded vertical bar. Together, the 64 bars form a chromatic spectrum of cosmological imagery, a visible field of xiang - the symbolic forms through which Dao operates in the realm of manifestation.

If Earlier Manifestation encodes the numeric essence of universal order, then Later Manifestation reveals its symbolic texture. The two works operate in dual symmetry, presenting number and image, principle and application, logic and flow. Together, they enact a material meditation on the dual system of the cosmos.

Building upon the structure of the 64 hexagrams from the I Ching, Convergence transforms the logic of symbolic imagery (xiang) into a field of chromatic unification. The artist begins by designing a consistent graphic language for each trigram, then forms 64 hexagrams by vertically pairing trigrams and arranging them into an 8×8 matrix based on the Later Heaven sequence.

But the work does not stop at representation. Instead, it introduces a further layer of logic: neighbouring hexagrams that share sides (excluding diagonals) are grouped into contiguous colour fields. A colour system is applied using eight distinct hues - each chromatic region constructed so that no two adjacent fields share the same colour.

The result is a planar convergence - not of narrative, but of order. Convergence proposes that complexity need not be chaos, and that multiplicity can collapse into pattern. The artwork is a map of difference structured into unity, an act of cohesion without erasure.

This triptych explores the interaction between ancient cosmological structure and modern computational logic. Each piece is grounded in the artist’s reinterpretation of Wolfram’s Rule 30, a one-dimensional cellular automaton known for generating complexity from simple binary rules.

At the core of each composition lies a reference to the Fuxi Eight Trigrams. In Rule 30 I, the eight trigrams are placed in a central square, with Rule 30 logic generating successive outer cells until only one remains. In Rule 30 II, the trigrams are arranged vertically as a central axis, from which bilateral Rule 30 expansion occurs - while treating empty cells as null space, creating contraction. Rule 30 III uses the same vertical axis but allows empty cells to be treated as active (zero), generating outward expansion until the field is full.

This series is not a visualisation of fate, but a simulation of observation: how structure evolves under constraints, and how randomness emerges from law. Each work is a predictive field, a stitched hypothesis, an algorithm made visible through thread. The trigrams, once used for divination, here become the seeds of generative logic.