"the Balloon Dogs ii" Sculpture

My practice is a florilegium of permanence, examining the tension between hereditary botany and the endurance of industrial materials. Born into a lineage of Malaysian Chinese floriculturists—spanning an orchid nursery on my paternal side and a chrysanthemum estate on my maternal side—I grew up in an environment where beauty was a labor of timing, climate, and fragility. My work is a contemporary evolution of this dialogue, translating the organic logic of the nursery into the language of the post-industrial era. I utilize industrial polymers and modular construction to "grow" synthetic specimens that interrogate the survival of cultural and biological identity. This act of synthetic cultivation allows me to archive a disappearing family legacy into a form that will never wilt. By reconstructing the orchids and chrysanthemums of my youth out of rigid, interlocking units, I create a speculative taxonomy—a "Forever Garden" that occupies the space between architectural precision and organic memory. In the sculptural series Inflatable Mythologies, I further explore this narrative by "grafting" cultural symbolism onto mass-produced silhouettes. By re-skinning universally recognized "Pop" icons with gold leaf, Hanakotoba, and Chinoiserie, I transform hollow consumer vessels into contemporary reliquaries. My work ultimately asks: how do we preserve the fragile narratives of our heritage in a world increasingly defined by synthetic imitation?