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2011-2017

Whispers of Trees-Magnolia Denudata

Chu Chu

Chinese, born 1975

Trying to capture the feeling of spring, Chu Chu collected tree branches near her home in Hangzhou and photographed them. In their shadows she added calligraphy, drawing from ancient philosophical verses that inspire her.

Like the literati (scholar-officials) of China’s past, she sees the beauty, the "pure spirit," inherent in these natural forms. Asked why she chose bare branches over flowering ones, Chu Chu quoted from an ancient Daoist text, the Zhuangzi, which questions our perceptions of the world and how we distinguish between right and wrong.

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