Heart Seals of Blessings & Joy · 福喜 | Chinese Leisure Seals 闲章
Selected Chinese leisure seals (闲章) presented through bookmark forms (书签), XINYIN LIUNIAN® | 心印流年.
Heart Seals of Blessings & Joy
Wisdom Through Timeless Symbols
Within XINYIN LIUNIAN® | 心印流年, Chinese leisure seals (闲章) are selected and brought into new relationships through contemporary composition. Drawn from my collection of approximately 1,000 leisure seals, each seal carries its own character, form, phrase and cultural memory. In this group of works, selected seal impressions are presented through bookmark forms (书签), creating a material structure through which different meanings can enter into dialogue.
Three compositions unfold around ideas of kindness, peace, blessing, joy and hope, allowing individual seals to retain their distinct meanings while becoming part of a larger visual and symbolic conversation.
I · Kindness, Joy and Wellbeing
The first composition begins with 「吉仁」 (Ji Ren), rendered in ancient seal script and associated with kindness and virtue.
It is followed by the gourd-shaped 「日有喜」 (Joy Each Day), expressing the quiet happiness found within everyday life.
The composition continues with three fish-related seals — 「平安鱼」 (Peaceful Fish), 「鸿福鱼」 (Great Blessing Fish), and 「长乐鱼」 (Enduring Joy Fish). Together with imagery of fish and lotus, they evoke abundance, peace, blessing and enduring joy.
Rather than expressing a single fixed message, these different seals allow related meanings to unfold around a shared idea of a good and harmonious life.
II · Peace and Auspiciousness
The second composition returns to 「吉仁」, allowing the idea of kindness and virtue to become a connecting element between the different groups.
Alongside it appears 「岁岁平安」 (Peace Year After Year), carrying a wish for continuing peace and harmony.
「吉祥如意」 (Auspicious and As You Wish) extends this idea toward fulfilment and wellbeing.
Placed together, these seals form a visual conversation around peace, continuity and the hopes carried from one year into another.
III · Blessing and the Future
The third composition turns toward blessing and possibility.
「福鱼」 (Blessing Fish) integrates the character 福 (blessing) with the form of a fish, bringing together language, image and auspicious symbolism.
It is accompanied by 「永受嘉福」 (Forever Receive Good Fortune), expressing the continuation of blessing through time.
The final seal, 「未来可期」 (The Future Awaits), shifts the composition toward what has not yet arrived — possibility, expectation and hope for the future.
Together, the three impressions move from inherited cultural meanings toward a contemporary reflection on how we imagine what lies ahead.
Seals Across Time
Each seal carries traces of language, form and cultural memory. When seals from different styles and contexts are selected around a particular character, meaning or idea and brought into a new composition, their relationships begin to change.
Within XINYIN LIUNIAN® | 心印流年, I am interested in this space between what a seal has carried through time and what it can mean when encountered again in the present.
The bookmark (书签) provides one of the material forms through which these impressions can be brought together. Here, it becomes a surface for arranging different seals into a continuous visual conversation — between individual meanings and shared ideas, between cultural memory and personal reflection.
Tiny seals, yet infinite meaning.
Who would carve something into stone unless it was meant to endure?
As I select and rearrange these Chinese leisure seals through reflection and lived experience, I encounter voices carried from the past and respond to them from the present.
Each composition becomes a dialogue — between eras, meanings and inner experience.
方寸之间，千年之思。
我将古老印文重新选择、组合，在当下的感受与思考中赋予它们新的关系。
一方方闲章承载着文字、文化与时间的痕迹，也在新的组合中，与今天的心灵再次相遇。
Each seal becomes an imprint carried through time —
a continuing dialogue between cultural memory and the present.
To learn more : Blessings Before Your Eyes, Joy That Endures, and Wisdom in a Square Inch
