History of Plants-10

作品賞析

As life forms, plants emerged on the earth one step earlier than animals. Tsai Hsien-Yiu, admiring their long evolutionary history, was inspired to develop his “History of Plants” series. By following the evolutionary model back from current plant types, it is hoped that the most primitive plant forms may be found. The artist uses ash and black smoke from burning plants to create his works, simulating the “sense of presence” that archaeologists experience when they find a lost civilization and its relics. He covered leaves on the canvas for rubbing, waited for the Indian ink to dry, then repeated the rubbing many times, accumulating the layers on the canvas, just as ancient fossils were covered up by sedimentary layers. The process symbolizes the plants’ evolutionary history, which has seen many “extinctions and rebirths.” The leaf rubbings, overlapping and covering each other, also show how they decompose and blend in the soil.