Coal & Ash Drawings
Dragon Encircling the Mountain – Cigar Ash Drawing
Caption：
EN: Cigar ash drawing — the image is both a gesture and a trace, captured before it vanishes.
CN: 雪茄灰绘画——既是动作也是痕迹，在消散前被摄影定格。
Description：
EN:
This work transforms an intimate, almost rebellious act — smoking a cigar — into a mark-making ritual. The ashes are my drawing material, leaving traces that are at once faint and dramatic. The dragon motif coils around a central mass like a mountain, evoking both Taoist cosmology and adolescent defiance.
The piece is best understood as performance residue: the act of smoking, tapping the ash, and dragging it across the page is inseparable from the final image. Photography plays a key role, capturing the drawing at its most alive moment before the ash disperses or smudges.
In this work, gesture is foregrounded: the dragon exists only as long as the ash holds its shape. The fragility of the medium mirrors the impossibility of holding on to youth, freedom, or resistance — all are consumed in the same gesture that creates them.
CN:
这件作品把一种亲密、带有叛逆性的行为——抽雪茄——转化为书写仪式。雪茄灰成为我的绘画材料，留下既轻盈又戏剧性的痕迹。盘旋的龙环绕着中央的山峰形状，既呼应道家宇宙意象，也唤起青春期对抗与渴望自由的冲动。
作品可以理解为表演的残留：抽烟、弹落烟灰、在纸面拖拽的动作与最终图像不可分割。摄影至关重要，捕捉下灰烬在散落或模糊前最鲜活的瞬间。
这里强调的是动作本身：龙只在灰烬保持形状的时间里存在。媒介的脆弱映照了青春、自由、抵抗无法被保存的事实——它们在创造的同时也被消耗。