Zheng He was a Chinese mariner and diplomat during the Ming Dynasty. To me, he was the most badass Indiana Jones of his time.
Not only did his ships make Christopher Columbus’ look like a trail of ants, his ships are celebrated until today as TREASURE SHIPS. YES. TREASURE SHIPS. You can definitely Google and Wikipedia him so I won’t get that much into his history. But I do have to emphasise TREASURE. Hello! This man (who was castrated btw so he didn’t do all this for his own personal ego, but more for the glory of China) has temples and statues built for him all the way from China, to Indonesia, to India and even some parts of Africa. He brought giraffes and tea and pearls and herbs and spices back to his Emperor, and after each of the six voyages he returned with more curiosities and exotic items. He also shared many of his empire’s treasures to expand its reach.
My collage work on Adobe Photoshop, 2013
I was obviously romanticising the idea of Admiral Zheng He’s treasures, what he brought back, what he brought with him to the rest of the world, how else it would have influenced his judgement of adventure, how it would have changed the lives of the civilisations he meets. There is so much to learn about him, yet not enough material on him online… Columbus and Marco Polo gets all the glory really.
My Chinese Lantern collage done on Adobe Photoshop, 2013 (Check out photos below for the final embellished versions)
I started a little project to practice different surfaces and ideas inspired by his voyages, the idea of elaborating imperial Chinese culture and artwork with my super extra pizzaz and flair for shiny stuff has always haunted me. If some of you remember, I used to make unique cheongsams for a living (more on that next time!) But one collection that didn’t make the big headline runways were my Chinese Treasure Boat collection, which I am pretty glad it didn’t, as it was a concept that is so dear and intriguing for me that I am quite satisfied to leave it open-ended— which means I could keep adding to it.
In 2016, I was contacted to create several textile prints for a property development’s show unit. I worked together with a renowned interior designer Alex Bayusaputro around a modern-oriental concept which I thought worked well with my Treasure Boat concept, although I had to “age” it by several years. The colouring and theme matured, a little bit like myself over the years (I hope?)
The hanging textile has since become one of my favourites and many have re-ordered it in different colours. Check out below!
I started this concept study nearly seven years ago, and providing the right opportunity and inspiration, it is something I’d like to develop more. Admiral Zheng He came to Indonesia and brought with him dragons and gold sycees, jades, emeralds and influenced the art form here in many ways. I hope to be able to revisit it in a few years when I have matured more, but I’ll tell you this here that I will not ever consider not using shiny stuff.
