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About Artist
Xiang Yun Loh (b. 1988) is an artist and scientific botanical illustrator who lives and works in Singapore. Her work interrogates how people relate to nature. Using her observations made through drawing, painting, and photography, she examines the everyday to study how nature is managed and engineered in our cities.
Through durational projects that map and document plants in our surroundings, she charts the changing ways we see and define nature.
In 2018, she began her professional career as a scientific botanical illustrator, producing work for Singapore Botanic Gardens. Her drawings were included in scientific publications such as floras, monographs, and new species descriptions primarily using dried and alcohol-preserved herbarium specimens. She is currently contributing illustrations to the 10-year project ‘Flora of Singapore’ spearheaded by the Singapore Botanic Gardens under the National Parks Board (NParks). It aims to catalogue and describe all the plant species that can be found in Singapore, from mosses to flowering plants.
Organised Scenery
Organised Scenery is a photographic composite of picturesque scenes found in man-made parks. My experience with nature is captured through a collection of these twelve photographs.
Natural and man-made textures are organised together to form these ‘natural’ recreation spaces. As urban dwellers, most of us have a great yearning to connect with nature. The ephemeral feeling of transiting between natural spaces and the high-density cities is translated through the use of chiffon as the printing medium. The use of this medium with the printed translucent overlaying images further engage our tactile and visual senses to examine how nature is being engineered in our cities, reframing our perception and experiences with nature.
Publisher: Xiang Yun Loh
Artist(s): Xiang Yun Loh
Publication Date: 2019
Binding: Thread Sewn (printed on Chiffon)
Dimensions: 16.5(w) x 11.5(h) x 0.3(d) cm
Pages: 16
ISBN: 978-981-14-2115-0
Price: 50 SGD
To Purchase: lohxiangyun.com
Plant-ed
There is always a moment of uncertainty when we come across weeds. Are they there intentionally or accidentally? Do we want them there? What sort of criteria do we consider when making such judgement?
As long as humans have domesticated plants, the existence of weeds has been a concern. We categorise a plant as a weed for various reasons; it could be a plant growing in a place where we find it undesirable, especially in human-controlled environments such as gardens, lawns, parks, farm fields, et cetera.
The term weed also applies to plants that aggressively invade territories outside its original habitat. Taxonomically, the term weed has no botanical significance, because a plant that is a weed in one context is not a weed when growing in a situation where it is in fact wanted. In the context of the home and garden, the categorisation of weeds is more often than not a judgment of taste.
Through a series of diptych photographs, I attempt to question our perceptions and interactions with plants in human-controlled settings. The very concept of a weed is one of human design; it is us who draws the demarcation lines and constructs classification labels. In that sense, you can say that our relationship with plants is an ambivalent one.
The interesting thing about weeds is that they alone inhabit ambiguous positions, shifting back and forth between the role of plant and weed. That said, how we choose to perceive them is purely a subjective and temporal notion.
Publisher: Xiang Yun Loh
Artist(s): Xiang Yun Loh
Contributor(s): Design and Text by Xiang Yun Loh; Copy-edited by Mike Hj Chang and Sabrina Lee; Translated by Chris Yeo
Publication Date: 2015
Binding: Hand-sewn
Dimensions: 14.8(w) x 21(h) x 0.5(d) cm
Pages: 42
ISBN: 978-981-14-7712-6
Price: 35 SGD
To Purchase: lohxiangyun.com
Salad
Intrigued by human perception of nature, Salad by Loh Xiang Yun presents a collection of 200 photographs that bring the various textures of a park to the fore. Steadily amassed from 24 parks over five years, Loh brings her passion as a scientific botanical illustrator into the tableaus she depicts, presenting a capsule of images guided by precision and an eye for detail. Emulating scientific fieldwork methods of collecting, ordering, and identification, each photograph is accompanied by a notation of its location and composition – twig, leaf, stone, netting, other. The book recalls a sample swatch in its presentation – a comprehensive catalogue of options, a buffet-style of offerings similar to that provided in the assembly of a salad. Through its thoughtfully organised pages, Salad probes the idea of the natural vs. contrived environment, allowing viewers to look beneath the surface in contemplation of mankind’s relationship to nature.
Publisher: Xiang Yun Loh
Artist(s): Xiang Yun Loh
Contributor(s): Text by Xiang Yun Loh and Kathleen Elizabeth Ditzig; Copy-edited by Dr. Daniel Caspar Thomas and Kathleen Elizabeth Ditzig
Publication Date: 2018
Binding: Quarter Binding
Dimensions: 17(w) x 24(h) x 1.8(d) cm
Pages: 248
ISBN: 978-981-11-6683-9
Price: 60 SGD
To Purchase: lohxiangyun.com
