A Poem Lovely As a Tree

The rites are accomplished to the beating of the drums;
The flower-wand is passed on to succeeding dancers.
Lovely maidens sing their song, slow and solemnly.
Orchids in spring and chrysanthemums in autumn;
So it shall go on until the end of time.

At the end of the grand ancient ritual, witches passed flowers and danced, orchids in spring and chrysanthemums in fall, until the end of history. Myths and religions were born out of the curiosity and fear of nature from mankind. Throughout their long history, they have tried to explain the logic between heaven, earth and mankind in various languages until modern times, when they were gradually replaced by verifiable science. The first people revered nature, worshipped it and learned from it, the description of the relationship between nature and man in mythological and religious narratives is not entirely delusional.

Emotional experience of mankind is closely related to nature. Since the ancient times, human beings have relied on mountains, rivers, plants and seasonal scenery as their emotional support. There are 152 species of plants in The Book of Songs, every blade of a tree and every petal of a flower were once an extension of people’s spirit and body. Human feelings and life forms are analogous and connected to all things in heaven and earth, even in contemporary era when we are constantly alienated from nature, we still need to project and shape our own appearance through all beings in the universe: the morning dew could be the fleeting time; the brightness after the rain could be the noble character of a gentleman; the spring sunshine on the grass could be the loving kindness of the parents. Human emotions, value systems and cognitive structures are all molded through the perception, observation, and description of all beings in nature.

Surrounded by concrete and artificial light, contemporary people are accustomed to borrowing everything in the world to express themselves, but it is increasingly difficult for them to get close to and perceive the existence and changes of nature. When young people boast about their lofty ambition of Hong Hu (The Chinese idiom Hong Hu zhi zhi, using the bird Hong hu as a metaphor for a noble man), have they ever looked up for birds? When we celebrate the resilience of the grass in the field, how much time has passed since the last time we touched the verdure? We see ourselves as the center of heaven and earth, and all things are for our use. Our long indifference, arrogant pride, and exploitation of the world’s natural resources have made the relationship between us and the rest of creation more and more severed. These divisions not only destroy the natural environment on which all life depends, but also erode our own spiritual experience and the richness and veracity of our perception of the outside world.

Sixi Museum is proud to present a new group exhibition on the theme of nature. The exhibition includes works by artists from many countries who explore the relationship between humans and the environment through a variety of media. Some of them use natural and organic materials to minimize the impact of contemporary art industry on the environment; some focus on the logic of nature in religion and use visual methods to tell the story of how everything works alike the cycle of the four seasons, the moon rises and the stars fall, and how the beauty of life is the beauty of nature itself; There are also artistic experiments that connect individuals, society, history, and other aspects through a certain natural element.

Through this exhibition, we hope to show some vivid possibilities on the topic of nature. We hope that this exhibition will encourage more people to observe, discover and cherish nature, to think about the intrinsic connection between ourselves and the environment, and to re-examine the way of interaction between mankind and the world of nature.

Cecilia Fiona, born in 1997 in Copenhagen, Denmark, has a unique technique of painting with rabbit skin glue mixed with handmade natural pigments to create a clear and dreamy translucent effect. In addition to painting and sculpture, music and clothing are also important mediums for Fiona, who tries to expand her inspiration into three-dimensional space through the dialogue of different senses, constructing a mysterious and contradictory spiritual world. Like a lost scene from an ancient myth, Fiona explores the philosophies of nature and the mysteries of the heaven and earth with imaginative romanticism by depicting the fluid intertwining of mankind and nature, between the unreal and the real.

The mixed faces of humans, animals, and plants; new creatures born from women’s mouths; angels spreading their wings and flying towards something; the fusion of clothing and performances that treat the body as an unrestricted container… In Fiona’s paintings, sculptures and costume installations, a series of prehistoric and futuristic creatures coexist and become entangled, like the images of ancient Roman cave monsters, full of grotesque themes and conflicting elements. Fiona freely creates her own universe, an ancient mythological world before the birth of order, where there is no opposition between life and death, earth and heaven, or fixed boundaries between nature, humans and animals.

“I am me and at the same time you.” Fiona’s work closely connects the human subject to its surroundings and the natural world, rejecting the idea that humans are superior to nature, that everything changes and is never finalized. The human body and mind, the vastness and immensity of nature, the past, present and future, cross species and time and space, melting into the myth of chaos and walking into Fiona’s vision of a new world of conception.