Living and Growing, 2022
I have always had a strong reverence for nature and to a certain extent I feel that the growth of all things is the magic of the earth and every resource we have right now is a gift of the land, the gift of the earth.
To begin with the canvas, I painted the back side of the canvas to penetrate the "dimension". I believe we are slowly moving into 4D in some way but people just didn't realize that. Besides, an expanded dimension will make the artwork visually powerful. Moreover, I usually like making art with the idea of making the viewers aware of the problems already happening around us. When I chose to use the plastic-ish color to paint, I not only wanted to have a contrast between human made and natural plants, but also it is a colorly abstract representation of the anthropocene. In terms of the choice of plants, both of them are locally grown Devil's ivy. It grows only with water and doesn't require a lot of sunlight. After one summer, this plant went from one to a bunch in my house and I was blown away by this vitality.
In the process of making this work, I did feel that I was drawn to think of something differently, because after I graduate from school and enter the society to make art I just feel I need to think as a viewer. In addition to the deeper meaning, I tried to consider more than before to make something visually fun, cute and pretty. Sometimes I just feel a deep meaning is important, but a good appearance to attract attention is the premise. I really like the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's work “the Anthropocene project ”, he used something visually extremely beautiful to drag people's attention and show a deeper meaning behind it (some people think it is capitalism but I'm not completely agree).
