Yuqian Ma

About

Ma Yuqian is a contemporary jewellery artist specializing in the design and carving of natural stones. She continuously explores the unique characteristics of natural stones, their combination with metals and other materials, and their potential applications in jewelry design.
Her creative inspiration derives from observing the absurdities and perplexing behaviors of daily life. She believes that perhaps absurdity is intrinsic to human nature, and living purely by reason alone is truly absurd. According to her, morality, rules, and societal norms constrain our ‘absurd’ nature. Arrows always point in one direction, and people are accustomed to following them, yet their lives are not confined to a single path; they can be absurdly diverse.

In her first series, she carves arrows from granite typically used in paving, symbolizing rationality and rules. Through the fragmentation and dispersal of stone structures, she expresses diversity and skepticism.

In her second series, she utilizes granite to create children’s toys such as Cootie catchers and Flip cards. Playing with these toys, people always hope to find direction through the randomness of toys.

In her third series, she likens humans to stones, using folded arrows to depict their state of ‘never look back until you hit a wall’ while navigating life.

Compared to other materials, she finds stone more eternal and stable. She repurposes granite offcuts from construction and paving, miniaturizing and sculpting them into the main body of jewelry pieces, challenging the material’s stability and exploring its diverse potentials.The inherent weight, sense of time, and authenticity of stone are reinterpreted in her work.