A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching)
2000
Suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″
Box: 13.75″ x 13.75″ x 1.75″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): Ch’ien
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): Chên
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): K’an
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): Kên
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): K’un
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): Sun
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): Li
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
A Box of Eight (The Trigrams of the I Ching): Tui
2000
One of a suite of eight relief prints on Vellum, housed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box
Image: 2.5″ x 5″
Paper: 13″ x 13″Edition of 8
Published by the Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
Works on Paper:
A Box of Eight
A Box of Eight is a series of 8 prints enclosed in a sandblasted Plexiglas box depicting the 8 trigrams of the I Ching, published by the Lower East Side Printshop during my Special Editions Fellowship. I printed the series with handmade ink containing mica powder that is brightly iridescent when light hits its surface. I chose to print the series on vellum paper so that the paper itself would interact with light also. The piece requires the viewer to take each print out of the box and handhold them one-by-one in order to find the precise angle in which the light reveals the image. As the angle of view changes, the light changes, and so, too, the piece itself.
The changeable nature of this series is reflective of the origins of their imagery. Each set of three lines, straight and broken, comprise the basic elements of the ancient Chinese text I Ching, or Book of Changes. There are eight possible sets of these lines, called trigrams, and according to tradition they can reveal inner knowing to the earnest seeker. I was interested in using the simple forms of the trigrams, an ink that is either iridescently brilliant or invisible depending on its illumination, and translucent paper in order to make a work that directly invited the interaction and mutability of light.
—Erika Blumenfeld