Jiang Zhi's iconic Love Letters stretched from 2010 to 2014. Part mourning ritual and part elegiac poetry, the series poignantly connects the transience of blooming flowers to the instantaneity of inevitable death, both of which are abundantly represented across different cultures. Jiang set different kinds of flowers ablaze, and captured the split second when petals and flame coexisted in an elegant equanimity. The artist has thus staged a visceral way to mourn, to imagine suffering, and to create an temporal moment suspended between destruction and rebirth, agony and sweet melancholy.
Jiang Zhi 蒋志 (b. 1971, Hunan, China) graduated from China Academy of Art in 1995. His works places an intimate focus on private narratives as well as exploring interrelationships within contemporary Chinese society. Fiction and poetry have also been an important part of his artistic output. Working with a wide range of media including photography, painting, video and installation, Jiang engages with contemporary, social and cultural issues. He consciously positions himself at the intersection of poetics and sociology, weaving mundane social and personal experiences into his works.
More information: Jiang Zhi's works on Galerie Paris-B
