Armillaria Mellea, 2016

Hong Kong 2017
Armillaria Mellea

Blindspot Gallery

Other Materials
Hair embroidery on silk
160.0 x 109.0 (厘米)
63.0 x 42.9 (吋)
Trained in both life science and visual art, Su creates drawings, videos and performative works that investigate the perception and imagery of the body, through metamorphosis, hybridity and transformation. The medium of hair embroidery was chosen at a time when the artist, in a bout of melancholia, decided to do a singular task that is mindless and repetitive. The menial labour of sewing and stitching is monotonous, but nonetheless affirms the agency of the artist. As an organic material, a part of human body, hair provides an anonymous yet universal connection to other beings. In addition, the fecundity of the armillaria mellea, the honey fungus, finds a visual analogy in an ejaculating phallus amidst a fountain of reproductive fluid, in the guise of a robustly flowering plant. Commissioned by Para Site for the exhibition “Ten Million Rooms of Yearning. Sex in Hong Kong” (2014), the work was meant to suggest the sensuous curtains used in massage parlour cubicles.