Image Harvest

Why We Wear It

2019 Mixed Media Digital Painting, Fresh flowers, Resin, Wood Board

fig.1 Mind map for 10 ideas.

Kim let us share 10 ideas that we want to develop. Mind map is always an effective tool to contemplate myself in a higher view.

Skimming through my previous works, I found myself interested in human rather than nature. Especially human behaviors and appearance. Black humor is also my preference.

fig.2 Two pieces of prototypes related to “Ikebana” and human body. I draw hands in a branch shape. However, they are to abstract to be recognized.

For the Image Harvest show, I turned to my new friend – Zewen Liu, a first year student in Rineheart Sculpture MFA program. He almost helped me the whole process of installation making.

I planed to design 3 posters and make a series of sculptures to combine the cruelty of Ikebana and social constructed beauty. The posters are visually beautiful but abnormal. All the plants are compared to parts of human body. They are distorted, wrapped, restricted, just as some ritual behaviors in human society, modifying the nature appearance to cater the dominant, patriarchy aesthetic.

I have tried using foil and wires to make “roses.” The molds are supposed to be uniform, artificial. But the wires and foil are too “organic” to shape the molds. So I chose resin as the final material to finish the cast.

fig.3.1-3.4 Installation making processes in MICA Rinehart Studio. 011

fig.4 Red anthurium & neck rings of Kayan people.

fig. 5 Tulips & European corset.

fig.6 Succulent plant & foot binding in Ancient China.

fig.7 Image Harvest show

Ikebana, “arranging flowers” or “making flowers alive”, is the Japanese art of flower arrangement which I am drawn to. However, what seems paradoxical is that people shape the plants in cruel ways (cut, twist, burn...) to highlight their intrinsic beauty. This contradiction reminds me of body modification in different cultures—Foot Binding (ancient China), Neck Rings (The Kayan, Myanmar), and Corsets.

The drawings reveal the life force of plant / body. The organic creatures are restricted, but they still find their way to get out of the limitation. Below the drawing, various flowers torturing themselves voluntarily to fit the rose model, just as human modify their body to the aesthetics of so-called mainstream.

Beauty exists in nature and yet is socially constructed.