The Withering Flower collection is inspired by the power of the flower image, its impact both visually and symbolically in Oriental setting.
From the flower’s precise metaphor in classical Chinese literature, “The Dream of the Red Chamber”, which simultaneously reflects the women living in a feudal society; to the extend of how the flowers are interpreted in fengshui as well as gifting etiquette, I was vividly drawn to the Oriental world of defining the flower visuals.
Withered
I found the flower as a subject often perceived as readily available, and of easy access to the public’s eyes. It could be randomly seen as pretty, commercial, kitsch, or even mundane.
Because of the blooming flower’s often delightful and appetizing appeal, I was immediately attracted to The Song of the Flower Burial in Cao Xueqin’s literature classic, “The Dream of the Red Chamber”, whereas the fallen and decayed petals beautifully yet melancholically symbolized the female protagonist’s struggle and sorrow in an oppressed feudal aristocrat society.
The flower is both the embodiment of life and the inevitable nature of transience.
I find the preserved flower as a refined gesture of longevity, and the decayed petals as the beginning of a new life; although the decayed flower is often seen as a jinx in fengshui and the symbolism of misfortune in Chinese literature.
The collection takes on the traditional root of a decaying flower’s language in Oriental setting, yet I hope to interpret the commonly beautiful flower and the withering ones into an aesthetic, blending the stereotypical jinx with engineered beauty, reaching over norms as what appeals and what repulsed.. that the life and the cycle itself is a sublime transition.