Jess Mak and Lee Yik Bong: Still Blooms

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Following their successful debut with The Spectacle Group at Art Central, Hong Kong artists Jess Mak and Lee Yik Bong return with Still Blooms, a new exhibition that reimagines floral art as a language for memory, emotion and cultural inheritance. Of the 13 pieces presented, 2 are live floral installations that Jess maintains almost daily, whilst 11 of the works are her sculptural floral installations preserved through Yik Bong’s fine art photography. These works hold flowers at the height of their brief lives so that the moments they carry can continue to bloom.

Jess’ most distinctive source of inspiration is manga and anime, where flowers appear at moments of heightened feeling: first love, first loss, revelation, longing or the turning of fate. In her work, the rose is drawn not from Western romantic tradition, but from the visual grammar of characters such as Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon, Aphrodite in Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac and Kodachi Kuno in Ranma 1/2. Orchids and lotus root the work in Asian cultural memory, while mahjong tiles, clay pot rice, lotus leaf rice and old Hong Kong letterboxes bring the language of flowers into the textures of everyday life.

Working with Jess, Hong Kong photographer Lee Yik Bong shapes each piece through light, paper, set and surface. His contribution extends beyond documentation. Because flowers are fragile and time-bound, each composition must be made once and photographed at its peak. In Still Blooms, photography is not simply how the work is preserved. It is the form in which the work becomes complete.

At the heart of the exhibition is Jess Mak, a classically trained pianist, former curator of The Spectacle Group between 2013 and 2018, and founder of Epoch Floral Atelier in Campbell, California. Her years at the piano gave her an instinct for composition, from the timing of an entrance to the weight of a pause. Flowers, when she found them, became another way of arranging feeling, rhythm and form.

Jess turned to flowers as a serious artistic medium during the pandemic, building handmade grids, experimenting with fishing line and surgical tape, and learning what the material would and would not allow. The technical demands are severe. Flowers are fragile and time-bound. Each composition can be placed only once, with limited room for adjustment before the petals begin to wither. There are no second chances.

The works in Still Blooms gather around three threads. The first is mahjong, drawn from the floral motifs printed on the tiles that filled Jess’ childhood home. The installations return those flat printed tile flowers to real bloom. The second is Hong Kong itself, captured through the feelings held by everyday objects and rituals. Crispy Tastes Better recalls the joy of lifting the lid on a clay pot of rice. Lo Mai Gai holds the family anticipation of lotus leaf rice arriving at the table. Check Your Mailbox carries the small thrill of finding a letter waiting at the letter box. In each work, the flowers carry the feeling, while the object is what calls it up. The third thread turns inward to the emotional terrain of Jess’ own life, including a piece on the intoxicating clarity of love at first sight.

Yik Bong’s materials are part of the work itself. For some pieces, he selects handmade papers with texture and relief that, combined with the print, suggest the surface of traditional Chinese ink painting. For Check Your Mailbox, he chooses metallic papers that bring luminance to the zinc-plated letterboxes of a Hong Kong childhood. For the mahjong series, the acrylic is no longer a protective layer. On its inside surface, Yik Bong writes the season names and tile numbers. The characters cast a silhouette onto the print beneath, and the acrylic itself becomes part of the tile.

Still Blooms sits at the meeting point of several traditions. It belongs to the long history of still life, in which the brevity of natural things has always been a way to think about time. It also belongs to the contemporary moment, where cultural inheritances such as manga are being reconsidered as serious creative sources. The exhibition’s title carries both readings: blooms held still in photographs, and memories still in bloom.

By appointment only.
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