Ash and Ember: The Forgotten Dream

95.5x35.2'', watercolor on paper, 2024

This watercolor triptych imagines a lost civilization of female terracotta warriors rising, living, and fading through an endless cycle of fire, life, and afterlife. Inspired by the unexcavated Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum and the form of Western altarpieces, I wanted to merge Eastern mythology with Western symbolism to explore how people dream about rebirth and immortality. The piece reinterprets the idea of the tomb as a “peach blossom paradise” — a fleeting world where beauty, war, and nature coexist before returning to ashes.