“Dongyi’s works span across jewelry, body jewelry, sculpture and conceptual installation. Trying to push the boundaries of jewelry, Dongyi creates the works with her unique and expressive language while making them wearable and well crafted. Collecting ideas from literature books, her own experiences, and researches of psychology, Dongyi lets free imagination and inspiration guide her in designing the object to wear. She likens herself as a storyteller, who narrates stories that seem to be trivial and common but actually express strong and genuine emotions.

The inspiration for the ‘Tired3’ comes from a small and interesting moment in her life, a tired afternoon. When Dongyi took her pen and sketchbook to figure out what to do next, she was very sleepy. She felt her eyes and eyelashes became so heavy and almost falling off from her eyes. To picture that feeling, the spherical eyes are transformed into the cylindrical shape by the influence of gravity pressure. The spiral circles made with black rubber are placed on the bottom of the cylinder, which means the pupil in the eyes. People sometimes simplify the texture of iris into lines pattern, which inspired her to create the special texture by sewing the gloves and fabric together. When sewing, Dongyi left edges to expose the white back of the gloves, which imitate the gap between the lines’ pattern on the iris. Tired3 was accomplished with different kinds of alternative materials, such as gloves, rubber, and aluminum cans. Dongyi wants to reproduce the warm feeling that always comes with tiredness with applying the gloves and fabric materials. Moreover, soft rubber was utilized to imitate the texture of the sclera.”