The pattern found on the rose petal is like the shape of a tree. Interestingly, It also resembles the print of the baby's placenta.
絕處逢生 [jié shù fēng shēng],
The original meaning of this idiom is to find a way out of a predicament. In this exhibition, I substituted the first word - "Fern" ( jié ) for "a difficult situation"( jié) because the pronunciation of these two words in Mandarin is the same.
The original meaning of this idiom is to find a way out of a predicament. In this exhibition, I substituted the first word - "Fern" ( jié ) for "a difficult situation"( jié) because the pronunciation of these two words in Mandarin is the same.
I created a series of artworks inspired by the Ferns in 2020. One reason I chose ferns as a research topic is that I recall Taiwan having so many ferns that it could be identified as the Kingdom of Ferns. ( Guide of Ferns, 2020 ) Another reason was that during the Covid-19 pandemic, people could only travel within the country. As I travelled around the mountain and riverside on this island, I noticed ferns are everywhere. Even though it is not our national symbol, it can represent the spirit of Taiwan.
Taiwanese pteridologist Kuo Chen-meng states: “ Ferns are perfect examples of how life will always find a way.“ (Cathy Teng, quote in Ferny Taiwan, 2021) Like Ferns will find a way, Taiwan, which recently faced several challenges, will eventually survive.
In this exhibition, I present artworks from 3 different periods, ranging from 2018 to 2020 :
The First part, the Ferns series, was created in 2020. The Second part is a few selected petal artworks from 2018 to 2019. The last part will exhibit the painting created in the early experimental period, in which I used design elements, such as dots, lines, and surfaces, to explore and develop my petal & leaf project further.
Inspiration and Concept for Petal & Leaf Project :
The pattern found on the rose petal is like the shape of a tree. Surprisingly, It also resembles the print of the baby's placenta. This reminds me of the texts I once read on Dao De Jing 'The Great Dao flows everywhere, at our every left to the right’ (Dao De Jing, section 34).
As I observed the structure of a leaf's vein closely, I found out that these patterns have their own connections too. It can only grow in a certain way, which matches the meaning of ' The Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three ’ ( Dao De Jing, section 42).
I believe that those repetitive shapes and patterns in nature have a meaning. By painting what I saw and what I have seen, hopefully, I hope to give you a different new perspective on plants and yourself.