 |
| Shock and Awe, 2008©Binh Danh |
We always get a sense of ending when the leaves fall. It seems like it is a finale of something, yet it's just a beginning. Binh Danh is a Vietnamese Artist who immigrated to the States as a child refugee. With such background, it's undoubtable that he artworks would relate to the history of Vietnam War. He cleverly blends the ideas of Photosynthesis and Photogram to make extraordinary artwork. The appropriation of the Vietnam War images printed on leaves with the Chlorophyll as the main pigment, as if demonstrating an inexplicable message from a victim.
 |
| Shock and Awe, 2008©Binh Danh |
"This process deals with the idea of elemental transmigration: the decomposition and composition of matter into other forms. The images of war are part of the leaves, and live inside and outside of them. The leaves express the continuum of war. They contain the residue of the Vietnam War: bombs, blood, sweat, tears, and metals. The dead have been incorporated into the landscape of Vietnam during the cycles of birth, life, and death; through the recycling and transformation of materials, and the creation of new materials. As matter is neither created nor destroyed, but only transformed, the remnants of the Vietnam and American War live on forever in the Vietnamese landscape." Extract from the artist statement.
 |
| Drifting Souls (2001 version), 2001©Binh Danh |
 |
| Ambush in the Leaf, 2007©Binh Danh |
Sources:
NPR: Binh Danh's Chlorophyll Art
Time LightBox: Legacy in Leaves: The Vietnam War Remembered