Eight languages have their say in “Four Seasons”


The merged texts in Prof. Suikang Zhao’s “Four Seasons,” appear like a colorful, assertive mix of ancient scripts and orchestral scoring. A lot is wanting to be said in this four-part work in eight languages. It is among over 90 pieces in “New Views: FIT Art and Design Faculty Exhibitin the John E. Reeves Great Hall.

Prof. Zhao’s work in Hebrew, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, English, Greek and Russian employs calligraphy, monotype printing, literature and conceptual documentation.

“By using different, overlapping texts, I construct a reality that draws upon the parallels and juxtapositions of today’s cultural fabrication and social structure,” says Fine Arts Prof. Zhao.

Suikong Zhao in front of "Four Seasons"
Prof. Suikang Zhao in front of “The Four Seasons” 

In his artist’s statement Prof. Zhao says that the drawings are spaces “of interwoven reality and cultural displacement, the juxtaposition of unrelated differences, the connection and disconnection…the fragmentation of familiarity and obscurity, the unknown, the anticipation of rootlessness and the sense of losing the center of traditional value and place.”

Says Prof. Zhao the work represents “the world we live in, or at least the one coming to us in the near future.”

New Views: FIT Art and Design Faculty Exhibit,” runs until March 22 and is open to the public. Hours are from 9 am–9 pm.  The exhibit is located in the John E. Reeves Great Hall of the Fred Pomerantz Art & Design Center. The entrance is on the northwest corner of 28 Street and Seventh Avenue.

See previous post on Prof. Zhao’s work: Suikang Zhao fires up the art in Tacony, PA

Photo: Rachel Ellner


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