He Yaxuan
Student at Lasalle College of the Arts
Email: [email protected]
Artist Statement (Concise Version)
My Focus
"Humans are products of their environment, and art documents this relationship.
I observe how societal changes shape our aesthetics,
preserving vanishing visual memories through my work."
My Process
"I primarily work through painting and handcraft,
choosing slow methods in a fast-paced era.
Every brushstroke, every stitch, is a commitment to authentic tactile experience."
My Belief
"When viewers pause before my work,
feeling the warmth of the materials, in that moment,
we reclaim our full humanity through perception."
Cotton and paper are my gentle pact with nature.
Cotton always feels warm to the touch, like the well-worn clothes from childhood. Every time I crumple and smooth it out, that rustling texture reminds me of stepping on fallen leaves on the way home from school. Paper too, especially the slightly rough handmade kind - when a pencil moves across it, there's a faint resistance, as if it's talking back to me.
/ Cyanotype Butterflies
on Cotton/
"Through the cyanotype process, these butterfly imprints on cotton fabric explore the delicate balance between transience and permanence. The Prussian blue patterns speak to nature's fleeting beauty, while the sturdy cotton base suggests our desire to preserve it. This intersection of organic inspiration and textile medium reflects my ongoing fascination with capturing ephemeral moments in tangible form."
Fingers tracing paper's grain, needle drawing threads through fabric—time dissolves into lightness. Every crease, every stitch, a quiet rebellion against haste.
I've learned that handmade treasures lie not in perfection, but in the luxury of attention: gathering scattered moments into something whole. Paper and cloth speak through touch—origami folds as geometry's sonnet, embroidered vines as nature's cursive.
Perhaps this is the essence of living beautifully: to devote tenderness to "unnecessary" things. In a world that races, we need slow rituals—like unwrapping a gift, stitch by stitch, to our own soul.
When I work with these materials, it never feels like I'm creating alone, but like we're making something together. The cyanotype chemicals spread across the cotton in unexpected ways, following the fabric grain to create shapes more interesting than anything I could plan. And paper - by the third fold it often cracks on its own, and then I have to go along with its temper.
I did think about sustainability at first. But now it's more like these materials are old friends - the longer you work with them, the more you understand their ways. Cotton pills, paper yellows, but these marks just make the work more real. They're not perfect, just like life isn't."
Embroidery
&
Paper Art
I am very interested in paper art and fabric embroidery. When I set aside time to sit down and do handicrafts slowly, it is like a gift in this fast-paced era.
"Embroidery is poetry woven in fabric."
Calligraphy
In future designs, I want to blend these crafts: giving digital work handwritten strokes, paper textures, and fabric qualities. After all, authentic handmade traces are what truly move people."
"Xuan paper remembers
what ink forgets."
Collage
I never plan what to cut out—just flip open a magazine, and whatever catches my eye—a color, a texture, half a face—becomes material. A plaid fabric scrap from one page, a bright ad fragment from another; they weren’t meant to go together, but suddenly, they tell a new story. This randomness thrills me more than careful planning.Collaging feels like treasure hunting: scissors as my tool, glue as my anchor, and every magazine page hiding a secret. When fragments somehow find their place, the satisfaction beats following a sketch any day.In future designs, I’ll keep this love for ‘controlled chaos’—maybe an unexpected color combo, or an element that barges into the layout. Clean designs are safe, but it’s the little surprises that make people look twice."
