Abstract landscape photographs fill the pages within Xiaoyi Chen’s publication Koan. The black and white photo-etched images explore the photographers own philosophical approach to simplification and abstraction, emphasizing the importance of intuition over reason the images reflect spiritual ideas where the symbolic is confronted and challenged through the photographic medium and replaced with abstract minimalism attempting to explore a world where language and words are not the primary from of communication. Here Xiaoyi Chen’s images beautifully attempt and exploring the boundaries of language through abstract minimalism, bringing forth atmospheric worlds and meanings which are kin to that of traditional Chinese poetry and Ink Paintings. This Publication includes an afterword by photographer available in both English and Chinese.

Chinese photographer Xiaoyi Chen uses the photogravure process to create extraordinarily beautiful prints on a variety of Japanese and other fine art papers. Chen's vision originates from immersion in Zen and Taoist philosophies: philosophies which, in contradiction to Western thought, emphasise the inadequacy of language and words, and the importance of intuition over reason and logic, to transform the self. In Zen Buddhism Koan is a story or riddle used to help in the attainment of a state of spontaneous reflection, free from planning and analytical thought.
The book's images, mostly landscapes, many taken in Iceland, often dissolve to abstraction. Chen's radiant images, in a complementary sequence and design, produce a photo book that provides an exhilarating visual experience.

"The debut book by Xiaoyi Chen (b. 1992, Sichuan), a young Chinese artist who focuses her practice on the combination of photography and printmaking, is a good example of the current trends in photography, since it blends different techniques and represents a comprehensive exploration of a singular topic concerning the artist.

Using black ink photo-etching and printing these images on different Japanese papers, the meditative and pensive mood that pervades this work is an invitation to reflect about the essence of things, to look beyond the superficial and to explore diverse meanings.

In Zen Buddhism “Koan” refers to a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution used to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment, and it is from this concept that Xiaoyi seeks to open up the territory of the pre-verbal and liberate things from their given names, exploring in this way the basic forms of the universe and migrating the focus towards intuition rather than analytical thinking.

Considering this, I think that the book effectively achieves its goal, since the design, sequence of images and bookbinding provide the adequate structure to disconnect from the meaning of the represented things, and immerse into a world of reflection and visual perceptions." 

-Daniel Espinoza x Analog Magazine