There’s always a meaning behind surrealism art and in this post, I reveal the deeper meaning behind my artwork ‘China’. I explain what it means for me, why I created it, and what I mean to express with the symbols and visual elements that I’m using. I also show you the creative making of ‘China’ with WiP screenshots and a timelapse video. I hope you’ll enjoy and get inspired to create art yourself!
‘China’ is another piece of mine where I’m portraying a character that is both human and object. The lady in ‘China’ is made up of porcelain – that’s what the title of the piece refers to.
While I created ‘China’ in 2018, I also have a work that’s called ‘Porcelain’ and that I created back in 2013. ‘Porcelain’ is the antecedent to ‘China’, its inspiration.
In ‘China’, I’m revisiting the same concept and taking it further.
I particularly enjoy the concept of fusing ‘alive’ characters with inanimate objects in many of my Surreal Stories. I’ve worked with the same concept in a number of other creations, in particular between 2019 and 2020 (and may be working more with it in the future…).
In particular, I’ve revisited the porcelain heart in a number of other works: ‘Rose Red Supper’ and ‘Desert Rose’. But also the fusion with inanimate objects has appeared in several of my creations, ‘Keyla’ and ‘Anahita’.
Feel free to contemplate these pieces below, and check out their ‘Making Of’ if you’d like to find out about the meaning behind these surrealism art creations.
The Making Of 'China'
Reverse layering
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Work in Progress shots
This is the ‘raw’ background for ‘China’. I was planning to create some seaside scenery with a dark, wild sky and a meadow right next to the ocean – impossible in real life, but that’s why I like to make surreal art. The meadow is made up of the same piece put next to one another over and over again. There are sharp edges and empty corners, but that doesn’t matter because other elements are going to cover them up soon.
Here we go. The sky got some more wildness with a hole in the clouds that seems to be opening up. Some little stars and two jellyfish that line the nighttime sky. The golden fence separates the meadow from the ocean that has appeared behind it.
Bushes and other plants border the grassy landscape. And when you look closely, you can spot the red pearls on the grass (or are they drops of blood?) and the tail of a snake that is wiggling back into the shelter of the bushes.
But most importantly, the main character has appeared. While the lady isn’t worked out at all yet, you can already notice her porcelain-like stockings.
The lady got her face, which is pretty much my raw face the way I photographed it. I added more elements on her body that intensify the impression that she’s made up of ‘china’: blue and golden elements on her torso, some adornments on her arms and shoulders, and – most importantly – the porcelain cup handle on her back.
A golden garter seems to be holding the stockings. She’s wearing precious stiletto high heels – but take a good look at the heel. It’s strutted and the sharp spikes hurt her fragile skin…
There’s a hole in her chest that demonstrates the fragility of her porcelain body.
The major editing steps here took place in the face and on the head. I cleaned up the face a lot, worked out the eyes, overpainted eyebrows, lips and cheeks.
A ship is ‘sailing’ on her wavy, pinned-up hair – I’m going to talk more about the meaning behind this surrealism art element later on. Two other symbols are connected to the ship with chains of pearls: a golden anchor and a fish hook.
More adornments for her hair and body: flowers, golden chains, feathers and ribbons grace her hair. There’s also a starfish in her hair that picks up the nautical theme. And one more thing sits in her hair that one can easily overlook: a little red bird.
Beautiful red flowers are growing out of the hole where her heart used to be. Splatters and drops of blood symbolize that injury that even her porcelain body can suffer.
‘China’ is completed. You can see that a lot of elements have joined the scenery: Her porcelain heart that she lost is carried by two dead fish, one holding a golden key and the other one a golden fish hook. The same beautiful red flowers are growing out of her heart and some blood is dripping down into a porcelain cup.
She’s looking down at the shards from her broken body. A golden knife. The skeleton of a frog with a golden crown. Another skeleton of a lizard on the left, and a seashell with a pearl. A stranded golden anchor behind her and a delicious little cupcake. Fish are playing with the jellyfish in the sky and a mocking bird is looking to eat some of the nectar from the flowers growing out of her heart.
The meaning behind surrealism art –
What is 'China' meant to express?
Of course, there’s also a meaning behind this surreal artwork, just as I like to tell stories in all of my Surreal Creations.
‘China’ is full of symbols – and it’s also full of contrast.
Let’s start with the overall setting. ‘China’ actually holds two different themes: first of all, the porcelain-like nature of the main character, and secondly, the nautical seaside scenery that reminds of ships and seafaring. Why? I don’t know. That’s the picture that formed in my mind before I created ‘China’…
Both concepts express the fragility of the character and her being lost. Porcelain is precious and might break easily. The seafaring scene implies that she lost her way and got stranded. This is a concept that I already visited in 2015 – even though in a completely different manner – in ‘Naufragée’, which is French for ‘castaway’ (learn more about the meaning and the making of ‘Naufragée’ here).
Let’s move on to the other elements that make up ‘China’.
The sky in ‘China’ is stormy and dark, but there’s a hole in the clouds. It’s no coincidence that some rays of light coming from that hole fall exactly on the porcelain heart.
The ship in her hair was inspired by the rococo hairstyles where women like Marie Antoinette used to decorate their pinned-up hair with sailing ships.
It picks up the seafaring concept of the entire creation and emphasizes that she herself has come a long way over the surges and deeps of the ocean.
She lost her porcelain heart. It broke out of her body. The heart is being lifted up and carried by two dead fish. The fish are made of porcelain themselves. Look at the golden adornments on their skeletons. Each fish still has a little red, beating heart in its body – a contrast to their deadness.
Each fish also holds a symbol in its mouth. One fish holds a fish hook, which conveys the idea of being caught in a trap, of getting ensnared. The other fish has a key in its mouth. The key can open a lock, it symbolizes a ‘solution’, a way out. It’s the exact opposite to the fish hook.
Another contrasting element is the red flowers that grow out of the seemingly dead heart. They symbolize that there’s still life in it and that it’s not yet too late.
The same flowers are growing out of the hole in her chest and have a similar meaning. Even though she got hurt and broke (therefore the blood splatters around the fracture), new life is coming out of the wound.
The anchor behind her symbolizes her strandedness, but it’s also a symbol of crutch. The sweet cupcake next to the anchor: despite getting stranded and lost, there is still sweetness around. She just needs to look…
Some more vanitas symbols on the ground: the skeleton of a lizard and of a frog with a crown. But there’s also an open seashell by the bushes that holds a precious pearl, just waiting to be found…
There are some tears running down her cheeks. But of course, those tears cannot be real tears. How could porcelain cry? They need to be golden adornments…
She cannot see what’s going on around, because – at the moment – she’s just staring down at the broken pieces, the porcelain shards…
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I hope that this post helped you gain some insights into my creative process and better understand what I meant to express through this work. However, I know that art is subjective and I am always interested in knowing how my viewers perceive my art.
What do you think about this piece? How does it make you feel? What does it mean to you? Please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments. If this piece inspired you to create a new piece of your own, I would love to see it! Post a link in the comments, tag me on Instagram (@ginangiela), or reach out to me directly. Make sure to sign up for my email list below so you don’t miss out on new ‘Making Ofs’ and other cool stuff. ♥
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