Origins and Philosophy

Poetonic is the name I chose long ago, born from a love of small-form poems and the belief that our inner truths must be as real as the imperfections that define us. It was a name waiting for a purpose, and in 2019, I found it in Shanghai. The city hit me like a wave—its chaotic streets, plastered with peeling billboards and littered with scraps, felt alive, gritty, and full of stories. I started gathering those fragments and turned them into collages.

My work leans on kintsugi, the art of repairing broken objects with gold, and Plato’s eternal Forms, those timeless truths beyond the surface. They taught me to see beauty in flaws, to honor what’s scarred but still standing. My collages aren’t about hiding the breaks—they’re about showing them off, making something whole from what’s been left behind. In the urban sprawl, I found poetry in the mess, and Poetonic became more than a name; it became my way of seeing the world.

In the spirit of Plato’s eternal Forms, my art aspires to reflect a higher truth, yet I propose that if humanity, crafted in God’s image, is inherently imperfect, then imperfection itself must be woven into the eternal Form of Beauty—transforming the messy, beautiful reality of existence into a divine expression. In an age where digital filters and AI threaten to supplant genuine experience with polished simulacra, my work stands as a defiant celebration of authentic, human-crafted expression.