“Nurture me.” is an installation containing two adult spider plants and three little cups of water that hold rocks and newly budded spider plants. The adult spider plants have dead ends, cracks and dried up leaves. I used gold leaf to cover the decaying spots on the adult plants. The baby buds are healthy in a bath of water with rocks weighing them down.
As we go through life, we accumulate scars. We are damaged by our situations and create distractions from our pain and suffering. The scars don’t disappear, and sometimes instead we cover them up and pretend they don’t exist. As communication becomes even more digital than ever before, it has become easier and easier to cover up our hardships and show others a gold leaf version of the truth.
Alternatively, we can look at it like Kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. Related to this is the aesthetic of Wabi Sabi “In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.[2] The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature.[3] It is prevalent throughout all forms of Japanese art.[4] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印, sanbōin), specifically impermanence (無常, mujō), suffering (苦, ku) and emptiness or absence of self-nature (空, kū).
Characteristics of wabi-sabi aesthetics and principles include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature.” -Wikipedia
