Practice of Drawing a Circle
2025 - ongoing

In Chinese basic education, there is a widely circulated story about Leonardo da Vinci 'drawing an egg': as a young artist, da Vinci was required to practise drawing eggs repeatedly over a long period in order to build a solid foundation of basic skills. This fictional anecdote featuring a Western artistic master has been incorporated into Confucian moral teachings that emphasise diligence over talent, underscoring the idea that artistic creation is inseparable from repetitive foundational practice day after day.

This monotonous and repetitive labour is not only present in foundational art training, but also in everyday, invisible tasks such as housework, cooking and caregiving — forms of care work which are often regarded as lacking creativity.

Drawing a Circle originates from my daily bread-baking practice. By repeatedly following the same recipe, each loaf leaves marks on the baking paper that 'draw' circles — each one distinctly different — revealing the formal evolution and traces of time hidden within repetitive actions.

Medium: baking paper