Hui-Chu Ying (b.1956)
About the Art
The Prayer Series
Pictured above, from left: Suite of five from the Prayer Series, c. 2010
- Gathering our Hope
- Spreading the Courage
- Maintaining Balance
- Follow the Enlightenment
- Connecting Wisdom with Heart
Materials: Mixed media monoprint, 30” x 22” each
Location at Summa Health: Dr. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Tower, Akron Campus (141 N. Forge St.), Sixth Floor, Central Waiting Room
Hui-Chu Ying's Prayer Series features a collection of monoprints that encapsulate her interpretations of prayer’s transformative power. Prayer, in its many forms, serves diverse purposes, and Ying draws on the visual language of Buddhist spiritual practices to communicate these moments of reflection and connection. The five prints each offer a unique perspective on prayer’s role in bringing solace and peace.
Two symbolic hand gestures, or Mudras, of the Buddha are central to this series. The Varada gesture, which invokes compassion, appears in Maintaining Balance, Following the Enlightenment, and Connecting Wisdom with Heart. The Dharmachakra gesture, symbolizing the act of teaching, is represented in Gathering our Hope and Spreading the Courage. Ying employs a single template or stencil, flipping it to create shadow-like forms of these gestures, which are depicted through both the right and left hands.
The artist enhances the visual narrative by incorporating a symbolic leaf-form representing the human heart, signifying love, and a bird, a messenger of hope, into each print. These elements elaborate on the prayers' purpose and context, encouraging viewers to reflect on prayer as a way to address human suffering, whether it is caused by war, disaster, disease, or loss.
By repeating these gestures and symbols, Ying invites the viewer into a meditative space, where each iteration mirrors the repetition of words or phrases in prayer. The cumulative effect of the series fosters an understanding of compassion and mindfulness, deeply rooted in Buddhist spiritual practice.
Gathering Our Hope
In this striking monoprint, the artist begins with a vibrant red background, textured with abstract patterns formed by a fluid, inscribed line. Against this dynamic backdrop, two graceful hands stenciled in green, the complementary color to red, gently grasp the delicate yet resilient base of a trailing plant. The plant’s fine, winding tendrils, painted across the surface, symbolize hope, which is both nurtured and embraced through this tender gesture.
The act of gathering, while rooted in the physical grasp of the plant, also embodies the dharmachakra, the Buddhist gesture of teaching. In this way, Gathering Our Hope conveys that hope is not only received but also imparted, illustrating the dual nature of the gesture: hope is both gathered and taught.
Spreading the Courage
In this vibrant monoprint, the background is filled with a complex weave of two colored threads that intertwine and knot, creating a dynamic foundation. Hui-Chu Ying repeatedly prints the gesturing hands over this intricate surface, varying the shades of green to emphasize the gesture of dharmachakra. These hands spread dotted threads, which symbolize the courage referenced in the title, across the print, scattering them with a sense of movement and vitality.
The artist allows the curvilinear patterns in the print to flow organically, without attempting to control their direction. This lively energy animates the hands, whose elegantly positioned fingers and simple, rounded shapes exude a calm, graceful strength. In this series, courage follows hope, extending the flow of positive energy from one gesture to the next.
Maintaining Balance
As the central print in the Prayer Series at Summa Health, Maintaining Balance is appropriately almost bilaterally symmetrical, reflecting harmony and equilibrium. The symmetry is centered around a vertical axis, with a pair of hands shown in the varada gesture, a symbol of compassion, positioned on either side of this axis.
Elements from the earlier prints in the series, such as the golden knotwork of the heart, the messenger bird, and the foliage of hope, are woven into this composition. While these symbolic elements do not follow strict symmetry, they enhance the overall narrative and iconography, maintaining the simplicity and clarity the artist strives for in her work. This print, with its balanced composition, invites reflection on the importance of compassion and steadiness in the face of life’s challenges.
Follow the Enlightenment
In Follow the Enlightenment, Hui-Chu Ying uses a series of finely outlined hands in the dharmachakra gesture, the gesture of teaching, to form the foundational ground of the print. Against this subtle backdrop, a single dark-painted hand at the upper right is depicted in the varada gesture, symbolizing compassion. This hand offers the gifts of hope and courage to the world, a gesture underscored by the paired birds, symbolizing the spread of blessings.
The act of bestowing gifts is a powerful expression of blessing. Through the composition’s underlying symmetry, Ying conveys that enlightenment brings peace and harmony, creating an ordered world built upon the principles of teaching. The print invites viewers to reflect on the transformative power of knowledge and compassion in fostering balance and understanding.
Connecting Wisdom with Heart
When viewed alongside the entire series, Connecting Wisdom with Heart echoes the color, background, and composition of the first print, though presented upside down. This inversion creates a sense of continuity, connecting the beginning and the end of the journey. The gesture in this print is the varada, a symbol of compassion, and its position at the foot of the composition suggests that the blessing is directed downward, as if the print captures a moment within a much larger, ongoing flow of compassion and blessing that extends beyond what is visible.
The inclusion of symbolic forms introduced earlier in the series, such as the heart, the birds, and the foliage, further develops this theme and deepens the message of interconnectedness. Ying’s work invites reflection on the continuous, unseen flow of wisdom and compassion that nurtures the world, offering blessings in ways both seen and unseen.
The Rogers Series
Pictured, from left: Rogers Series, c. 1995
- Field of Hope and Courage
- Motivation of Bucket List
- Healing with Full Support
Gift of the Richard and Alita Rogers Family Foundation
Materials: Mixed media monoprint (left and center); Sumi ink drawing on metallic leaf (right), each 30” x 22”
Location at Summa Health: Dr. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Tower, Akron Campus (141 N. Forge St.), Fourth Floor Hallway, East End
Hui-Chu Ying created this trio of works during a challenging time in her life, marked by her father’s fall and subsequent hip injury, which required increased support for healing. In response, she crafted this three-part series as a personal reflection of her contribution to the healing process.
Each piece in the series features a field of pattern, whether created through the printing process or, as seen in the rightmost piece, by the artist’s gesture before drawing. The monoprints on the left and center are largely abstract, with intricate details that emerge only upon closer inspection. Ying’s thoughtful titles provide a glimpse into her intentions for each work, inviting viewers to engage with the gesture of her brush or pen and enter into a shared meditative and healing experience.
This series reflects Ying’s emotional journey during a time of family crisis, offering a visual expression of hope, motivation, and the importance of healing with support.
Field of Hope and Courage
Set against a backdrop of muted oranges and reds, Field of Hope and Courage features a delicate portrayal of purple irises, their blooms resting on slender green stems, suggested by bold, expressive brushstrokes. The uneven distribution of the irises across the print leaves large, open spaces, evoking the natural randomness found in the wild, where flowers grow in varying clusters.
In Chinese culture, the iris symbolizes faith, hope, wisdom, and courage, qualities that Hui-Chu Ying reflects were especially meaningful during the time of her father's recovery. This print embodies her deep admiration for him and serves as her personal contribution to his healing journey. Through the symbolic presence of the iris, Ying offers a visual gesture of hope and strength, infused with the healing intentions she held for her father.
Motivation of Bucket List
At first glance, Motivation of Bucket List appears to be the most abstract of the three prints, composed of strokes from a brush that vary between dry and heavily laden with ink. The occasional bleeding of the ink, where the lines dissolve into soft, grey areas, creates subtle punctuation marks across the surface of the monoprint. These fluid, blurred edges draw the viewer's attention to the texture and movement of the brushwork.
Upon closer inspection, the title reveals the unexpected: what we see are literal buckets. Repeated, overlapping, and spinning in profile, they seem to fall across the paper, cut off at the edges as if captured in a fleeting moment of a much larger cascade. The simplicity of the brushstrokes reflects the artist's sharp observation, offering a quick yet expressive portrayal of the bucket’s form.
As Hui-Chu Ying reflects, we all carry our own "buckets," whether literal or metaphorical, along with the desire to fill them with experiences, hopes, or dreams. This print captures that sense of motivation and the endless possibilities that await us as we pursue what we wish to collect in life.
Healing with Full Support
In Healing with Full Support, Hui-Chu Ying begins with the intricate process of burnishing metallic squares, similar to ultra-fine gold leaf, across the surface of the print, creating a subtle woven pattern that becomes visible beneath the Sumi ink drawing. The gold leaf’s irregular application, with its folds and inconsistencies, reveals an orange backing that enhances the rich, nuanced abstraction of the piece. This delicate, time-consuming technique serves as the foundation for the drawing, which itself represents Ying’s rapid impression of the vertebral column, pelvis, and leg bones.
At the center of this composition, a scrummed area in the hip suggests the point of injury, symbolizing the accident that befell her father. The gold, a material that is both precious and costly, combined with the focus on the body’s essential parts, transforms this work into a form of ex voto, a votive offering usually given by a patient or their family in hope of healing or relief from suffering. These offerings often focus on the afflicted body part, as Ying does with the bones depicted here, and are commonly found in places of devotion, such as altars dedicated to healing saints.
In this way, Healing with Full Support not only tells the story of the artist’s father and his recovery but also serves as a personal, abstracted appeal for healing. Together with the other works in the series, it embodies a powerful expression of hope, faith, and the artist’s dedication to supporting her father’s journey toward recovery.
About the Artist
Hui-Chu Ying, an esteemed artist and educator, has made Ohio her home since arriving to teach at the University of Akron’s Myers School of Art. She earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) from Shih Chien College in Taipei, Taiwan, before pursuing a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) at San Jose State University and a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) at Texas A&M University. Ying’s distinguished career includes not only exhibiting her work in solo and group shows but also presenting workshops and lectures around the world. She has written extensively about art and has had her own artwork featured in numerous publications.
In addition to her academic achievements, Ying actively leads her students in both domestic and international art studies. Her personal commitment to artistic growth has led her to participate in residencies at esteemed institutions, such as the Frans Masereel Centrum in Kasterlee, Belgium, and the Fundación Valparaíso in Almería, Spain. She has received numerous fellowships and is a dedicated grant writer, seeking support for both her own art and for the creative development of her students.
Where to See More of This Artist's Work
Ying’s work is exhibited widely across the U.S., Europe, Australia, as well as in Korea and China. In Northeast Ohio, her prints can be found in prominent locations including the offices of GOJO Industries (Akron), Akron Children’s Hospital, the Akron Art Museum, and at University Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic. She is represented by galleries in Cleveland and Akron.