Kathy Chang’s Surrender Series: A Journey Into the Unknown
In her Surrender series, Kathy invites viewers on a transformative journey—one that embraces playfulness, freedom, and ultimately, an openness to new perspectives. This body of work was inspired by a vivid dream featuring a geometric shape that embodied a singular sensation: “feel good.” These shapes became the foundation of the series—sacred forms with tiny doors that open into expansive portals. Mysterious, inviting, and sometimes daunting, these portals represent thresholds to the unknown.
At the heart of each piece are children in boats, gently floating toward these portals. Their sails, made of surrender flags, symbolize a release of control—a conscious choice to trust the current and surrender to the flow. In doing so, they embrace the unknown and follow what sings to them. This surrender becomes a metaphor for creativity itself: the life force that unfolds when we let go, when we listen, and when we dare to explore.
Beneath the boats lie vast fields of honeycomb-shaped geometries. These echo the divine patterns created by bees—creatures long seen as symbols of harmony between the spiritual and material realms. Their hexagonal cells are sacred geometry in motion: efficient, harmonious, and deeply resonant.
Bees, once predatory wasps, evolved into gentle, life-sustaining beings with hairy bodies and pollen-collecting buckets on their legs. With their transformation, they helped give rise to a world of vibrant, blooming color. They offer us medicinal honey—the nectar of the gods—and serve as messengers between worlds.
In this way, bees mirror our own potential for evolution. Their story is a testament to transformation, cooperation, and divine purpose. Through the lens of Surrender, Kathy encourages us not just to discover new worlds, but to create them—to embrace the mystery, flirt with the unknown, and allow ourselves to be guided by intuition, symbols, and sacred signs.
