China
StARTup Art Fair Installation, China Obscura
China Obscura installation at StARTup Art Fair, San Francisco Office Windows of the Great Dictator, 2015 Design: View into and out of Mao's office windows from his villa Meiling (Wuhan), a retreat he nicknamed "Home of the White Clouds and Yellow Cranes" …
China Obscura Catalog
A catalog of my China Obscura series will soon be available from Pixalib books. You can preview and order it here.
China Paper Exhibition
Installing a giant sheet of handmade paper from Anhui province for an exhibition of my Chinese Paper Collection-in-Progress at YCIS Hong Kong gallery, on display until 1st January 2016
Mao’s Office Window
Sneak peek at a series in progress. Windows are barriers, lattices, screens. They keep out enemies, the hot and cold, and they shut us in. These Cyanotype murals are views of rooms in China where pivotal people stayed, slept, and worked to change the …
Printing a Cyanotype Mural in Beijing
In Beijing, we have reliable sunlight only half the year. To make my blueprints, I need strong sunlight and no rain. In spring, the pressure is on to create work which I've designed over the winter. Below: a video of Cyanotype printing on the …
Timelapse Mural in Yantai
For a recent project in the coastal city of Yantai (Shandong province). Sponging the first layer of a mural creates an atmosphere and texture which enables freedom of later layers. Yantai Mural from Elizabeth Briel on Vimeo. Painting in the …
Shadows of Heritage Beijing: 1
As more of Beijing's neighborhoods are smashed in the name of progress, those of us who live in them can do nothing. Many of the residents prefer to live in modern flats provided by developers. Why wouldn't they? These apartments are warmed in the …
Beijing: Black as Coal
Two years ago, as my plane circled Beijing, I smelled the city before I saw it. The metallic tang that filled my throat and grated my lungs would soon become familiar. It permeated everyone's clothing, and made my hair smell like nights out in …
Tea and Paper Travels in China
There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh tea flowers, or a pinch of Pu'er tea to warm up a cold morning. Nanluoshan (in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province) is a mountain in southwest China, long famous for its fine teas. My travels to Nanluoshan were not for …
Silk Road Papers
A papermaker in the Silk Road oasis town of Khotan in what is today Northwest China. He stamps artists' papers with his family's chop before I take them to Beijing – a journey of nearly 3000 miles. The papers come in two different sizes, part of my "Greater …
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