Golden Spike

作品賞析

Artist Hsu Yin-Ling created Golden Spike when she was pregnant. She described the process of creating this work as being like that of a dung beetle slowly building up dung balls. Every time she saw this work, she would draw whatever she saw that day, whether plant or mineral, on the object’s outer layer. Day by day, more and more things were gradually attached to the image, and eventually they accumulated to form a record of this creative period. The term “golden spike” of the title originally represented a permanent and meaningful symbol: it was the last railroad spike driven in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States. It was later cited by the geological community as an abbreviation for the standard system for dividing or defining strata of different ages. Golden Spike is the last work in her “Existence” series of 2021-2022. Hsu used this work to record the environmental situation during the pandemic era and to mark the important moment of becoming a mother.