RUTH JU-SHIH LI
’STILL LIFE FROM A DISTANT MEMORY’
CURATED BY CON GERAKARIS
24 MAY–23 JUNE, 2023
OPENING NIGHT: 1 JUNE
Ruth Ju-Shih Li, Untitled, 2022, wax, found object, flame. Photography by Peter Morgan.
ID: This is a close-up image of a white wax sculpture with a black background. The wax sculpture is in the centre-foreground placed on a silver stand. The wax is formed into layers of flower petals at the top, forming a bulb like structure, with the bottom of the sculpture dripping down the stand. On top of the sculpture, the wick of the wax sculpture has a light orange flame. The silver stand curves at the bottom of the sculpture into a bell like end to the stand.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Autobiographical in nature, Still Life from a Distant Memory is a multi-component, immersive, and ephemeral installation, built on-site in the gallery that slowly breaks down throughout the duration of the exhibition. The work will be conceived in conversation with contemporary performance artists who in turn will respond to Li’s installation through ephemeral activations during the course of the exhibition.
This is the first iteration of Still Life from a Distant Memory with the exhibition moving onto the Australian Centre in China in the World, ANU (2023) and Artisan Brisbane (2024).
Ruth Ju-Shih Li, Still Life from a Distant Memory, 2023, Installation view. Photography by Jessica Maurer
ID: There are chandelier-like sculptures that surround a large wax sculpture in the middle of the gallery. On the left, there is three clay suspended chandelier-like sculptures, connected together with clay string. Each sculpture has a bulb like structure as its base, with flower petals forming on top, and vines that are hanging from the base and curved on top of the sculpture. This is duplicated on the right side of the gallery as well. In the middle, there is a large wax sculpture sitting on a dark brown wooden stool. The base of the structure has two descending bulb structures, with a flower garden cascading up its structure.
EXCERPT FROM THE CURATOR…
Forever elusive and ceaselessly unbending, time is the greatest medium that builds and weathers our existence. We have boxed this intangible temporal flow into seconds and years to understand its slippery nature, given identity in the face of a clock. Ruth Ju-shih Li’s Still Life from a Distant Memory employs time to delve into the process of healing by charting the progression of decay. Li’s amalgamated botanical sculptures are crafted from raw clay, wax, and bamboo, clinically manipulated through a delicately laborious practice. Of equal importance are the four elements - air, earth, fire, and water - which create and destroy in impartial chaos. Assembled both in her studio and on-site, Ruth bravely hands her ephemeral artwork to the forces of nature as gravity and time leave their scarring marks.
Anchoring the exhibition is Florilegium (2023), an ethereally carved wax sculpture sitting upon a Chinese rosewood plant stand. Composed of imagined botany drawn from Australian and foreign flora, Li subverts the symbolic lexicon of flowers to introduce an idiosyncratic visual language. Nestled within the petals and buds hides a root system of wicks, set alight in a considered act of destruction. Where initially the work aesthetically betrayed its intrinsic materiality, once lit the meticulous bouquet alchemises fire and air to melt, drip and solidify again. Florilegium begins life as an otherworldly bloom, an imagined entity that wanes over the course of the exhibition, reducing to an unrecognisable spectre of crystalline stalactites.
Haunting this centrepiece is Li’s iterative raw clay and porcelain installation Still Life from a Distant Memory (2020-ongoing), a series of suspended earthen clusters further exploring the artist’s ethereal floral ecology. Unglazed and unfired, the clay sculptures revel in their monochromatic palette, absorbing light and air to cast intricate shadows. Aerial roots form a dendritic commune between the hanging blossoms, a symbiotic relationship living and breathing together as the elements tighten their suffocating grasp. Echoing the decay of Florilegium, the damp earth withers and cracks returning to dust and leaving the trace of a floating memory - a bittersweet celebration of the beautiful experiences encountered across a lifetime.
Ruth Ju-Shih Li, Still Life from a Distant Memory, 2023, Detailed shot. Photography by Jessica Maurer.
ID: There is a clay sculpture with a bulb like structure as its base, with flower petals forming on top, and vines that are curved on top of the sculpture. There is a brief separation then there is another bulb-like structure that descends off the top, with more vines suspended from the sculpture.
Sprouting from an assuming corner, Bamboo Study IV (2023) unfurls as an examination of tension and release. A fresh cut bamboo culm droops under the weight of an earthenware bloom, frozen in an equilibrium of rigid fluidity. Li once more tests the natural resilience of her organic materials existing in transmuted state by artistic intervention. In time, the parched bamboo succumbs to gravity and snaps at the base of its wall mount, the green exodermis eroded into an arid brown hue. Bamboo Study IV visualises the splendid chaos that creates life, a perfect storm of wild chemistry into which all living matter is born and passes on into the next stage of life.
Ruth Ju-Shih Li, Still Life from a Distant Memory, 2023, Detailed shot. Photography by Jessica Maurer.
ID: In the foreground, there is a close up of a large wax sculpture sitting on a dark brown wooden stool. The base of the structure has a descending bulb structure, with a flower garden cascading up its structure. Behind it, there is a clay sculpture with a bulb like structure as its base, with flower petals forming on top, and vines that are curved on top of the sculpture. There is a brief separation then there is another bulb-like structure that descends off the top, with more vines suspended from the sculpture.
Still Life from a Distant Memory expounds in aesthetic and conceptual beauty. The refined fanciful florilegia of Ruth Ju-shih Li’s ephemeral installations are an unwavering visual cornucopia of haunting elegance. Building upon the rich tradition of time-based art, Li introduces an artful consideration of natural materials, unafraid to allow the whims of time to degrade her unprotected earthenware and wax. Informed by the artist’s lived experiences in coming to terms with loss, this exhibition daringly embraces the passage of time as a nonpartisan collaborator. Almost through mutual understanding, Ruth Li employs time as a fundamental material, respectfully appreciative of our moment of life, quietly celebrating the beauty of it all.
Con Gerakaris
Curator