Cultural and Creative Products from Academy of Fine Arts, Zhengzhou University

Zhengzhou

Established in 2001, the Academy of Fine Arts is one of the first new schools created after the merger of the original institutions into Zhengzhou University. Over the past two decades, while grounding itself in the culture of the Central Plains and drawing upon the educational philosophies and methods of top-tier national art academies, it has developed a comprehensive fine arts discipline system centered on its advantageous and distinctive field of “Central Plains Fine Arts.” Continuously expanding its academic reputation and societal influence, it has become a highland for art talent cultivation, research, and creative production in Henan Province.

Silk Scarves

The Yangshao culture is a prehistoric culture with exceptionally rich archaeological research findings. These four silk scarves feature regenerative designs based on Yangshao painted pottery patterns. Four thematic scarves—“Life in Perpetuity,” “Farming, Harvesting, Pottery, Fishing,” “Constant Renewal,” and “Perfect Pair”—are created by reinterpreting fish, bird, sun, geometric, and spiral motifs. This set represents an innovative design application of Yangshao painted pottery ornamentation. The Yangshao culture belongs to the most prosperous period of painted pottery in China’s Neolithic Age, with its painted pottery being its most distinctive feature. People of that time used black, red, and brown pigments to paint birds, beasts, fish, insects, flowers, leaves, the sun, moon, stars, and geometric patterns on pottery. Through these paintings, they expressed the ideas, aesthetic tastes, and understanding of the natural world held by the ancient inhabitants of the Central Plains.

Tilling, Sowing, Pottery, and Fishing

Life Perpetual

Ever Evolving

Paired and Coupled

The Other Wheat Field Refrigerator Magnet

“The Other Wheat Field” is an intangible cultural heritage (ICH) innovation design project focused on the inheritance of cultural genes and the re-evaluation of contemporary value. Through the concepts of “watching over” and “sowing,” it cultivates a spiritual wheat field of folk art within the fertile ground of the new era’s cultural policies. Using the refrigerator magnet as a medium, it employs AR interaction technology to infuse static graphics of famous Henan ICH elements with dynamic life, constructing an immersive cultural experience.

The Other Wheat Field Refrigerator Magnet

Chinese Dragon · Five-Color Pearls Toy

In Chinese mythology, the dragon represents kindness and helpfulness and is often depicted in legends as a protector of humanity. The pearl symbolizes wisdom, spiritual energy, and power. The dragon embodies prosperity, good fortune, and also serves as the rain deity. The motif of a dragon with a pearl (or “dragon chasing a pearl”) is common in Chinese art, and the related tale is one of the oldest and most famous in Chinese folklore.

This paper toy creatively applies the five colors of traditional Chinese culture to the tea bead packaging. The tea beads are housed within a structure combined with a paper-folded dragon head. The ingenious papercraft texture of the dragon scales merges with the natural, elegant charm of the tea beads, creating an appreciable and playable Chinese-style handmade ornament. It sparks a unique oriental charm through the collision of traditional dragon culture and tea aesthetics within a compact space.

Chinese Dragon · Five-Color Pearls

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