Ruth Ju-shih Li

Florilegium II 2023
Wax, cotton twine, fragrance, found object

Artist statement:

Autobiographical in nature, Florilegium II is an ephemeral wax sculpture, built around a single cotton wick on an antique candle holder. Extending on Ruth’s ephemeral clay practice, this work is a venture into new ephemeral methodologies, materials, ritual, and performance. Stable until it is lit, the sculpture is frozen in time awaiting its activation through the introduction of fire.

Organic in form, neither fauna nor flora but at the same time both, the work flourishes, fluctuates and decays. Releasing the natural scent of sandalwood, evoking memories from the artist’s grandmother’s house in Taipei, filled with the fragrance of incense.

Utilising time as a material, Ruth Ju-shih Li’s ephemeral sculptures are a celebration of renewal, cycles of life and the gradual passage of time, embracing every season, including the changes and return to earth presenting actions of personal reflection, giving form to Ruth’s deeply personal meditations.

Blooming in imagined monochromatic flora drawn from the artist memories, Florilegium II speaks in the universal language of flowers. These chimerical microcosms of organic forms though autobiographical, mirror and extend onward to consider the transitory nature of the human condition. The artist’s temporary sculptures embody an ongoing process of becoming and its ambiguous ontological state of flux. Informed by her interest in articulating the complexities of her cultural identities, Ruth draws inspiration from the language of dreams and myths to examine cultural confluences as an inclusive language into the spiritual.