Love work, loath mastery over others, and avoid intimacy with the government.
אֱהוֹב אֶת הַמְּלָאכָה וּשְׂנָא אֶת הָרַבָּנוּת, וְאַל תִּתְוַדַּע לָרָשׁוּת
These characters are created by rendering the alphabets of Hebrew names in Songti, and using the colour layers to indicate the spelling order of the word. For instance, the painting with purple background consists of two Hebrew letters, ב and ן, as ב covers part of ן, it spells בן. These paintings are dedicated to בנימין יצחק בן מאיר (Benjamin Isaac Ben Meir). Songti (宋體) , a writing style derived from the China Song Dynasty , using woodblock techniques created to enable movable type.
Acrylic on Canvas, 40x60cm, 2020
A beautiful verse from “Song of Songs”, written by King Solomon, יִשָּׁקֵ֙נִי֙ מִנְּשִׁיק֣וֹת פִּ֔יהוּ כִּֽי־טוֹבִ֥ים דֹּדֶ֖יךָ מִיָּֽיִן׃ (Oh, give me of the kisses of your mouth, For your love is more delightful than wine, 1:2), rendered in the archaic seal-script style on an intense palette of burnt sienna and malachite green, signals the navigating of feminine and masculine energy. The כי here is represented by a blue crescent which has witnessed thousands of years of human love. It is painted in Seal-script 篆書, an ancient style of writing Chinese characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BCE. Seal-script 篆書 is an ancient style of writing Chinese characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BCE.
Decidedly Jewish, Carol Man began her journey from a totally alien background. Born in colonial Hong Kong into a traditional Chinese family dating back to the Song Dynasty (creators of the world’s first bank notes,) she began a Jewish journey through the 90’s, that while strange and unfamiliar to family and local community, allowed her a cross pollination of both experience and history. This sensitized “vantage point” has blended her primal DNA, with her Master of Visual Arts (2015) obtained in Hong Kong, to create a gestalt of installations, encompassing objects, paintings and calligraphy.
Carol Man works in Hong Kong and New York City