Hands reach out from the ground and the sky, cuboid shapes hover over the water like an army of flying saucers, and images appear superimposed. Each work offers plenty of details to unpack as we enter Ruiyao Zhu’s surreal, dream-like world.
Ruiyao is interested in exploring the subconscious, dreams, and psychology through printmaking, drawing, illustration, painting, and sculpture. Just like in our dreams, how we interpret what we see is up to us – the work is just the conduit that enables us to channel our imagination.
The hands in her work are just as ambiguous. We usually associate hands with the warmth of physical touch or greeting someone with a warm handshake. Yet, disembodied hands can appear almost menacing, as if they are reaching out to us, manifesting from seemingly nowhere. For Ruiyao, they are the agent of our consciousness, the element that takes control and manipulates the world around us. They are often associated with power, authority, and control – they hold strong significance in religious, political, and cultural contexts. Just as our hands are what we use to change the world around us in the physical realm, here they exert control over the dream-like spaces the artist creates.
What appear to be rectangular crates bob up and down in the water. What’s inside them? Is it something useful, dangerous, or a useless item that’s been lost? Are they portals into different worlds, and do we dare open them and explore? For Ruiyao, these boxes symbolise the unconscious part of our psyche, which remains hidden from view but still guides us in our decisions – they can symbolise concealment, protection, enclosure, and the unknown. These elements often become more obvious when we’re dreaming, which we see in these works, as it’s hard to miss them.
By bringing these two elements of boxes and hands together, Ruiyao juxtaposes the symbols of power and unconscious, asking us to take these two as the starting point to interpret based on our associations with these elements in our lives. Creating these works using printmaking, a technique that involves applying layers over time, is fitting given the layered approach in her works and their interpretation.
Like Salvador Dalí, Ruiyao Zhu blurs the line between reality and the subconscious, creating surreal landscapes inviting profound psychological interpretation. While Dalí employed melting clocks and distorted figures to explore time and perception, Ruiyao uses floating crates and spectral hands to symbolise the hidden forces of the mind.
When we wake up, we can never entirely hold on to the dream as it disappears from our memories, but Ruiyao’s artworks have given permanence to the invisible. Her work serves as a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, compelling us to explore the depths of our own minds. Her imagery challenges our perception, offering glimpses into a world where the tangible and intangible coexist in a delicate balance. In doing so, she invites us to embrace the unknown, engage with the surreal, and reconsider the boundaries of our reality.
You can find out more about Ruiyao Zhu’s work on her Instagram.
All images are copyrighted by the artist.
