Flower-inspired art takes the spotlight at new exhibition in Shanghai

Artworks with flowers as their subject created by 25 contemporary artists across the world are on display at an exhibition at the Pearl Art Museum in Shanghai.

Titled In the Name of Flower, the exhibition showcases more than 150 pieces made using various media, such as painting, photography and sculpture. It will end on Dec 6.

"It's a unique way for people to explore topics such as art, life and death," says Li Dandan, curator of the exhibition and the museum's director.

A series of oil paintings by Chinese artist Yang Xun explores the power of life.

Yang says his works were inspired by the time he faced a career dilemma.

"I was confused and did not know how to achieve a breakthrough in my career after years of doing black-and-white painting," he explains.

This predicament went on for five years until 2014, when he was motivated to add colors to his work after seeing the flowers in the courtyard of his Beijing residence.

Soon after, flowers like magnolias and begonias became the subjects of his works.

"One element is never absent in the series－round light spots, which represent the origin of lives and the source of power," he adds.

This discussion of life is also depicted in the series of photographs, titled Blue Bones, by Hu Weiyi.

Through cyanotype, a photographic-printing process widely used to record the pattern of paint specimens with a blue background, the artist combined the negatives of flowers with X-rays to create photos where flowers seem to grow from the bones.

"It all started with a black-and-white X-ray of a patient infected with the novel coronavirus that went viral online in February. The image was just etched in my mind,"Hu says.