Lines of Change: Hexagrams 1, 11, 14 and 49 from The I Ching Series

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is one of the oldest Chinese classics, a book of wisdom and divination consulted for well over two thousand years. Its whole vocabulary comes down to two marks. A solid line is yang: firm, active, bright. A broken line is yin: yielding, receptive, open. Stack six of them, and read from the bottom up — and you have a hexagram. There are sixty-four, each made of two three-line trigrams (Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Water, Mountain, Wind, Fire and Lake), and each describes a moment in the cycle of change.

Each hexagram is already a composition. Six horizontal bars make a rhythm of full and interrupted, weight and air. Each bar has its own meaning in the building of the structure, which makes them a natural fit for bold geometric color. Every original in this series is photography plus graphic design, for dye transfer on metal.

Hexagram 1: Heaven • Qian, The Creative Force

Trigrams: Qian (Heaven) over Qian (Heaven)

Hexagram 1 opens the book. It is the only hexagram made entirely of solid lines: pure yang, Heaven doubled. It stands for creative power, initiative and the tireless strength of the sky.

In Heaven, six solid black bars stretch across a pale cyan field. Behind them sits a radiant disk of hot magenta that softens to violet at its edges, so the pink shows between the bars of the material like God’s light shining through. The bars aren’t ruled perfectly; they’re wavy like the forces of nature, and so that the artist’s hand stays visible inside the geometry. Magenta and cyan I consider modern chakra colors, right for an image that is all about the beautiful strength, presence and expansion of heaven.

72 × 72 in. Available in the shop in five materials.

Hexagram 11: Tai, Peace In Love

Trigrams: Kun (Earth) above, Qian (Heaven) below

Tai looks upside down, with three broken lines of Earth sitting on three solid lines of Heaven, but that’s where its meaning lives. Heaven’s energy rises, Earth’s settles, and so the two meet and coalesce. Tai is the hexagram of harmony, communion and flourishing.

Peace In Love is a prayer and homage for clarity and understanding. It’s built over a photographic field of splashing water: white spray, streaks of flying droplets, deep blues, and warm sandy, pebbled tones along the bottom edge, from a photo of the Bal Harbour jetty. Six bands of bright aqua alternate with translucent white. The top three split down the middle, and a darker column of blue water shows through the gap. The bottom three run unbroken. The texture is threaded over everything, so the structure seems to be seen through falling water.

72 × 72 in. Available in the shop in five materials.

Hexagram 14: Da You, Great Possession • Great Abundance

Trigrams: Li (Fire) above, Qian (Heaven) below

Fire above Heaven is the sun high in the sky, shining on everything at once. Da You has five yang lines and a single yin line in the fifth place, the position of the ruler. It is read as abundance held with openness and modesty, generous rather than grasping.

Great Abundance is the cleanest geometric piece in the series, a pop art take on a hexagram tied to abundance and wealth. Six saturated cobalt-blue bars lie across a deep green field. Soft shadows beneath each bar lift it off the surface. The top line is solid, the second is broken, and four solid lines complete the stack below. In the gap of that one broken line, the green brightens into a soft mint glow, as if all that light has somewhere to pool.

60 × 60 in. Available in the shop in five materials.

Hexagram 49: Ge • Revolution

Trigrams: Dui (Lake) above, Li (Fire) below

Fire in the lake: Two elements that contend, each trying to overcome the other. The character ge originally meant an animal’s hide, the pelt that is shed and renewed as the seasons turn. From there it came to mean revolution: Change that comes when its time is ripe, shedding what no longer serves.

Revolution carries on the series with bold colors and layers. A blazing red field with rounded corners sits inside a smoky border of purple and violet. Across it run six deep blue bars. Reading from the top, the first and fifth are broken and the rest are solid. A faint violet seam runs down the center of the solid lines, as if each one had been joined from two halves. Clouds of dark, near-black smoke drift over the red and blue, thickest near the center, blurring the line between fire and water.

60 × 60 in. Available in the shop in five materials.

Bring the Changes Home

All four pieces are now in the Art Catalog in the shop, each on five materials: cotton paper, canvas, bamboo wood, glass/acrylic and metal. Great Abundance and Revolution are 60 × 60 in, from $1,905 on cotton paper to $6,280 on metal. Heaven and Peace In Love are 72 × 72 in, from $2,160 on cotton paper to $7,135 on metal. Shipping is free anywhere in the US. For a custom size or an international quote, email sarah.ikerd@studio-shangri-la.com.

Thank you for spending time with these hexagrams and their interpretations. I hope one finds its way into your own season of change.

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