DANFUL YANG

Born in 1980, the young Chinese designer Danful Yang reinvents traditional Chinese art and craft  techniques  using  modern  Western  materials  to   create   playful   and   visually dynamic works.

Although she is not formally trained in design, she has worked closely with the internationally renowned designers including Martin Szekely, André Dubreuil, Jurgen Bey, Mattia Bonetti, and Maarten Baas as well as skilled craftsmen, who have contributed to her design education.The designer’s works have been collected by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Craig Robins (part-owner of Design Miami), and Billie Weisman (The Fredrick R. Weisman Art Foundation).

Her iconic ‘Fake’ armchair is an over-the-top hybrid chair that is an amalgamation of Chinese and western Rococo styles upholstered with fake designer handbags. The creative work is a cross-cultural bombardment of visual stimuli, turning imitation into originality and reflecting the onslaught of a globalised consumer culture.

Yang’s porcelain unicorns explore Chinese traditional craftsmanship and philosophy along  with references to the Chinese family dynamics, named 'Girly', 'Daydream' and  'Glasses'. ‘Girly’ is a porcelain work which incorporates the shapes of four different flowers - orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum and plum blossom. Traditionally, in Chinese iconography, the grouping of these flowers is called the Four Gentlemen. Each flower represents a specific quality embodied by the model Chinese person; the straightness of the bamboo stem is an indicator of honesty and modesty, the orchard symbolizes elegance and decorum, the chrysanthemum represents moral integrity and the plum blossom embodies resilience, strength of character and steadfastness of ideals.

Yang explores the process and aesthetics of packaging in her stools ‘Packing Me Softly’ and discusses the attitude of the contents and packaging box itself . Most of the time, we focus on the contents of a container and not the box itself, but the box protects the contents we care about while the box does not get the basic respects. In the society , we care about the clean of the city but most of us do not show the respect to the cleaning people. Here, a taped up packing box is remade in fragile silk hand embroidery, infusing a common object with cares and respect.

Devil or Angel is a porcelain wall installation. Normally babies are native and pure , when we see the horrible and disabled babies, people will ask what’s happened, why ? Because of the profits, recourses or politics , the selfish human beings start to have wars , fights, pollutions , if we keep on doing that bad things, our future which is our babies will be suffered in the end. So we need to think about what is the correct thing to do. We can choose to be devil or to be angle for the future. Although it can be used as shelving, the piece is not necessarily functional, as Yang prefers to work in narratives where form does not necessarily follow function.

An artistic process which is reflective of Danful Yang’s cross-cultural experiences in cosmopolitan Shanghai and abroad. Her works are often playful and incorporate objects and materials in unexpected ways.

生于1980年，年轻中国设计师杨丹凤将中国传统手工艺与西方现代的材料和理念相结合，创造出了生动有趣的作品。

尽管她没有受过专业的设计教育，但她已经与国际上知名的设计师马丁·塞克利，安德烈·迪布勒伊，约根·贝，马蒂亚·卜娜缇，马腾·巴斯有过密切合作，同时还不断向熟练的手工艺人学习，锻炼了她对设计的领悟能力。杨丹凤的作品已经被加拿大蒙特利尔美术博物馆，克雷格·罗宾斯（迈阿密设计展的拥有者之一）和比利·韦斯曼（FredrickR.Weisman 艺术基金会）等收藏。

她的标志性“赝品椅”融合了中国和西方洛可可风格，是混合假名牌手袋以包裹软垫的戏剧性椅子。这套富有创造力的作品给人以跨文化的视觉冲击与刺激，将模仿和假冒转化成了一种独创力，反映出了对当今全球消费文化的抨击。

杨丹凤的白瓷麒麟系列探讨了中国传统手工艺与中国家庭哲学，名为“女孩子气”，“白日梦”和“眼镜”。瓷器作品“女孩子气”结合了四种不同的花—梅兰竹菊。在中国的传统意象中，这组花被称为四君子。每一种花代表中国人一种特别的品质；竹的直立表现诚实与谦逊，兰花是优雅和礼仪的象征，菊花代表道德操守，梅花体现了韧性，坚强的性格和坚定的理想。

杨丹凤在她的作品“温柔的包装我”系列中探索了关于包装的过程中人们对于包装盒和里面物品的不同的态度。大多数时候我们只关心包装里的内容而不是盒子本身。可正是包装盒保护了我们关心的物品却得不到相应的爱护，从而引申出社会中的现象，比如我们喜欢城市的清洁，但是清洁工等相关人员并没有得到相应的尊重等等。这里，一个被胶带捆绑的包装盒被手工艺人用丝线手工绣花重制，给一个平常的物件注入了关心和爱护。

“魔鬼还是天使”是墙上的瓷器装置作品，婴儿本身是纯洁可爱的化身，装置中用了很多恐怖残疾的陶瓷娃娃引起大家的疑问和关注，他们发生了什么，为什么会这样？当自私的人类为了资源，利益，政治发动战争，造成污染的时候，想想我们的未来我们的孩子以后会怎么样？因此我们必须要正视我们的行为，为了未来请选择做孩子们的天使而不是恶魔。“魔鬼还是天使”虽然它可以当作置物架使用，但这件作品不一定具有功能性，相对于功能性，杨丹凤更注重她的作品中的叙事性。

杨丹凤的创作过程展现了她在上海与国外跨文化生活的领悟与体验。她将物件与材料以幽默的方式出人意料的相结合，作品常常给人俏皮幽默的印象。