​​Ocean Deep is a developing body of work that emerged from Ju Yi’s 2025 artist residency at Studio Kura in Itoshima, Japan. While initially rooted in direct sensory impressions of the coastal landscape, the work has gradually shifted inward—evolving into an abstract exploration of blue as a felt energy, a state of inner resonance shaped by natural rhythms and spatial encounters. The series includes both works from the original residency exhibition, Echoes of Itoshima, and newly developed pieces that move beyond geographic impressions into internal terrains—an evolving inquiry into blue, depth, and the quiet energy of presence.

 

The Echoes of Itoshima works arose from slow walks, quiet observations, and a heightened sensitivity to the surrounding rhythms—drifting light, skeletal trees, shifting winds, and the stillness in between. A sense of solitude and subtle attunement informed the process, allowing a deeper presence to emerge.

 

Rather than translating visual impressions, Ju Yi uses layered experimentation on paper as a process to explore her internal dialogue with nature. She works with acrylic, pencil, and gel ink pens, alongside gestures of abrasion, tearing, and cutting—layering and disrupting the surface as a means of exploration.

 

Driven by bodily engagement and emotional attunement, this approach is not to represent, but to search—to intuitively shape a visual response that resonates with an internal sensation or atmospheric trace. Here, paper is more than surface; it is a living membrane that absorbs, resists, and remembers. The works unfold as meditative traces—negotiations between form and formlessness, control and surrender.