Contra - A professional network for the jobs and skills of the futureDecoding '菜': A Calligraphic Exploration of Food as Language
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
Back to feedPost
Karmaine's avatar
Karmaine Tan
• Mar 22
A personal exploration into imagery and stylisation. A deconstruction of the Chinese character “菜” (dish), with its core radical “米” (rice) brought into focus.
This piece explores food as language — isolating the foundational element of a meal and reinterpreting it through sauce-based calligraphy. A bold red stroke references the top radical, while a translucent white sauce forms “米”, symbolising rice as the heart of every dish.
This visual decodes the Chinese character “菜”, isolating “米” — rice — as its foundation. Rendered in sauce, the character becomes both ingredient and meaning, where language dissolves into texture.
By enclosing the composition in quotation marks, the character is lifted out of language and into focus — translated not as text, but as an idea to be deciphered, plated, and reimagined.
Visual ArtsAI ArtAdobe PhotoshopChatGPT
Post image
Back to feed
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started