I Ching IV

As the closing plate in the four-print I Ching set, this work brings the visual investigation of the hexagrams to a resolution. Across a four-piece sequence, an artist often establishes the variational logic in the first three plates and uses the last either to summarize the series or to introduce a final variant that recontextualizes the earlier images. The horizontal-line vocabulary of the I Ching — six stacked bars per hexagram, each solid or broken — translates directly into the carved surface of a woodblock, where flat planes of pigment are pulled by baren onto washi. Qian's training across both art history and mathematics positions the I Ching as a culturally specific reference (the Yijing as foundational Chinese text) and a binary combinatorial system encoded in graphic form. Like his other serial prints, I Ching IV sits within a multidisciplinary practice extending from mokuhanga and reduction-cut printmaking into drawing, sculpture, installation, and artist books.