Pixel Garden 2.0 by Heng Lee

Artist list

Heng Lee

Digital images present us incredible landscapes and creatures of our world through a small rectangular screen. Depending on the resolution, we can zoom in or zoom out these images to produce a mosaic-like visual effect. Heng Lee attempted to refine and materialize such effect into a piece of “jewelry” that can be touched and worn, so that a small episode of “scenery” can be preserved.

Pixel Garden 2.0is one of Heng Lee’s recent works. In the process of creation, he collected images that can represent the beauty of Taiwan either by field photographing or downloading directly from the Internet, and then processed these images using digital software to create the natural sceneries in his mind. The relationship between traditional craftsmanship and technology is like the theory of relativity; in the historical torrent, a traditional craft might also be called technology in its own era. In Heng Lee’s earlier works, he has been trying to apply technology to renovate tradition and has achieved excellent results. This time, he combines industrial technology with traditional craft again, and utilizes the convenience of technology to shorten the creation process. Then, with handcraft techniques, his works present the temperature of nature, exhibit the collision between nature and technology, and explore the relationship between contemporary technology, nature and human being.

In the era of knowledge explosion and when the whole society begins to pursue efficiency, technology has been making our lives more convenient, while nature is departing away. We can appreciate the sunrise of Mount Ali in Taiwan on Google search, but we cannot truly experience the shock brought by the real sunrise scenery. We can observe the process of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon on YouTube, but we cannot perceive the same affection as when we see a caterpillar becoming a butterfly right under our eyes. In the series of Download the Nature, Heng Lee downloaded and processed the images of nature using computer, and integrated laser cutting and handcraft embroidery techniques to create a digitalized hand-made butterfly, which means to reflect the planarized feeling of modern people when they view the nature on the screen.

Modern people tend to appreciate the nature through the screen of mobile phones and tablets. Images of beautiful landscapes are transmitted between fingers, and colorful pictures leap to our eyes accompanying the blue light of the screen. The illusion of the network contrasts to the reality of witness; the mirror image reflected our eyes is somewhat illusory, but also immersive. In the Floral Print of Formosa series, Heng Lee observed and captured the images of unique flowers in Taiwan with his mobile phone. Same as “Downloading the Nature”, he combined laser cutting, computerized layout and handcraft embroidery, and created the vision that wanders between virtuality and reality, and that reveals the imagination of our inner reaction.

This is Heng's first solo exhibition in Beijing. We have discussed together with the possibility to find a natural symbol belonging to Beijing and put it in his works. During the few months of his life here, he tried to understand and integrate into this city. It happened to be Autumn, the most beautiful season of Beijing, when he was preparing for his exhibition. He was touched by the falling leaves of ginkgo that covered the whole ground of a city park and decided to use ginkgo leave as the shape of his new works.
Therefore, we are honored to exhibit the latest works of jewelry artist Heng Lee: the Memory Series - Ginkgo. Beijing. 2018