Artistic exploration examines importance of trees

Italian architect Stefano Boeri's creation of a kinetic model is featured at the exhibition. CHINA DAILY

Albert spent years in South America studying the indigenous Yanomami people, whose paintings illustrate the myths and daily life in the forest, and the relationship between plants and animals.

Also featured at the exhibition is landscaping designer Stefano Boeri. The Italian architect and urban planner in 2014 built the Vertical Forest, two residential towers with an ecosystem consisting of more than 700 trees and 20,000 plants in Milan. His work on an urban forest for Liuzhou of China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is also on display. The exhibition shows a kinetic model that Boeri developed, which illustrates the different strategies of creating forest cities according to the different geological and climate conditions in China.

Chinese artists are also featured in the exhibition. Among them is Shanghai-based artist Zhang Enli, who started to create paintings of trees in 2004. Four of these creations, each measuring 3 meters wide and 2.5 meters high, are on display at the show.

To the 56-year-old, the four paintings of trees are like portraits of the elderly: The twisted trunks and branches without leaves seem to have personalities, with their life stories to tell.

Another artist whose works are on show is Hu Liu, a Beijing-based painter who mainly focuses on plants. The 39-year-old meticulously fills her illustrations of plants with black pencil shading. With complicated lines and strokes she constructs the spatial order of the subjects. While her imagery is accurate, the atmosphere is poetic, with a tint of mystery.

According to Gong Yan, director of PSA, this is the third time the station has joined hands with the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain. In 2019, the institutions presented Japanese architect Junya Ishigami's first solo exhibition in China and held a showcase featuring works of art based on the architecture of Jean Nouvel.

If you go

Trees

11 am-7 pm, Tuesday-Sunday, last admission 6 pm, July 9-Oct 10.

Power Station of Art, 678 Miaojiang Road, Huangpu district, Shanghai.