Wildflower Sculptures: Wahlenbergia marginata

作品賞析

This work is a realistic three-dimensional metal sculpture of a wild plant native to Taiwan by artist Lie Wei-Zheng. This plant, known in English as “southern rockbell” or “Asiatic bellflower,” has a small, pretty bluish-purple flower, and one can often see it growing on grassy fields or in rock cracks. Since it is rather small, it is easily overlooked. But for Lie Wei- Zheng, the blue flowers sparkling in the grass are like stars hanging on top of the stalks, and breathtakingly beautiful. He shaped the complete plant by striking pieces of copper and silver repeatedly with a small hammer and chisel, using the “flower-knocking” technique, and he used other composite materials like raw lacquer, fiber, and sand to create the tangled roots and the soil they grow in. He depicts the image of this plant as closely and realistically as possible, recreating the slender, delicate, and yet lifeless beauty of the southern rockbell. The moment the work is completed, the life is frozen in place.