Midterm

  The subject of the image refers to "Link", and the tremendous tree is what I want the audience to focus on. The picture will actually start from the right-hand side, where the trunk and the leave looks healthy, but after pollution that human beings produce, it makes the color of the trunks grow darker, and the leaves on the tree are actually not that healthy, and by the end, the tree died and the leaves initially falling down from the tree. In addition, the self-portrait that I placed in the middle of the tree represents "Dead and Alive", and the string is what allows me to associate with nature, which is the tree, essentially became lesser as the tree loses its vitality. As a matter of fact,  I was inspired by the artist Ana Mendieta, specifically her land art, such as Siluetas, and she was eager to find the connection between her and the earth, just like the relationship between her and her family,and some of her work carved and shaped herself into the nature  in order to show how she was connected to the nature, which also her family. As a result, I sympathize with her about how close we are with nature, and we actually belong to nature, thus killing nature eventually leads us to death. For instance, polluting the environment, like cutting down trees, is the same as taking our life, because we are interdependent with nature, and when it died we died. What I intend to convey to the audience is the idea of protecting nature or more like a warning, and this is also why I made this artwork. Since there are more and more industries require wood, therefore they cut down trees and used it as a tool to manufacture things that improve people's life standard, but what they doing is actually killing themselves, because we are so connected with nature, so protect nature equal to protect ourselves, and bring a better future life, also vice versa. One of the techniques that I deployed is color gradient, the color of the tree's trunk and leaves are gradually changing from a healthy one to unhealthy, and I also utilized the sharp contrast of color within my self-image, the dark one stands for death, whereas the one with color stands for alive. Moreover, I also decrease the number of leaves and the strings for the sake of exhibiting our loss of connection with nature. This project represents me because I know there is a balance with nature and human, you pay what you take, and you cannot just take it for free, especially when you killing something, like taking trees'life, and you will finally pay back with your own life, and I RESPECT THE balance with nature, therefore this work represents my mindset on balancing of lives.