The Realm of Perception (2009)
As the initial step to understand humans' own selves before encountering the outer world, the series explores Ting's personal state of consciousness and unconsciousness and the relationship between the inner and outer world in search of her true cultural identity.
On the base layer, Ting used an ink transfer technique to place the text of personal confessions directly on the canvas, then overlapped the text with drawings of fluorescent colours through multiple peeling to depict key moments in her friends and family's lives.
The series of paired paintings focus on the continuity and differentiation of expressing one's own self and re-connecting with the outer world in each attempt. From Ting's perspective, they also featured the tension between her typical Western culture to confess personal emotions and Chinese values to hide emotions beneath layers of imageries and texts at times of emotional struggles. The dichotomy between the suppressed and the expressed is conveyed so that Ting can let go of the boundaries, reveal the hidden items for reconnection and again follow her own impulse to conceal it.