Zheng Bo lives and works in a village neighboring a lush green hill, on the south side of Lantau Island, one of the least populated areas of Hong Kong. Having started as a daily practice throughout the pandemic lockdown, he strolls each morning up the hill and when he notices plants that interest him, he sits down in their presence to draw. This daily practice of Drawing Life effectively becomes a way of staying with, giving time and focusing on each plant in question, almost a form of conversational communication with the plants themselves. 

In these intimate, effervescent pencil-drawings on plain A4 paper, branches intertwine, bursting like a choreography of forms, gently hesitant or sometimes briskly rushed strokes deepen into darkness, patterns of ferns span outwards looking for light. The sketches suggest a web of nature that is as complex as it is hard to break down into parts. Each drawing is but one attempt at grappling with the vastness of the natural world that Zheng Bo encounters daily, and yet, collectively the series of drawings encompass the entanglements of the whole. Through repetition, as daily practice, the drawings affirm Zheng Bo’s commitment to witnessing and deepening his experience of the plants’ lives. The impression is perhaps of solitary works, a form of introspective meditation, however, they could also be seen as gestures of outreach and generosity towards the multi-species world at large.   

The drawings are grouped and exhibited in 14 to 16 day segments reflecting the solarlunar cycles, becoming in this way a form of keeping time. Placed on low tables, intermittently displayed, with soft pillows for the visitors to kneel or sit, the process of viewing them reflects the intensity and dialectic relationship that Zheng Bo experiences himself in the process of drawing. The audience is invited to come down to the level of the earth, to slow down, focusing on each individual plant and drawing, one by one. As the viewer moves on from one drawing to the next, they unfold like a form of time-keeping, following the patterns of the stars and nature, becoming attuned to the minute processes and vivid details of an intricate, fragile, more-than-human world. 

This daily process and its ensuing results, is on many levels, influenced by pre-modern Chinese aesthetics: from the production of scrolls that also have a durational unfolding of time, to the subject matter of the natural world that was ever present in Chinese art. Zheng Bo’s return to nature reflects a current need to rediscover our pre-modern co-existence and value-systems in inquisitive harmony with, rather than domination of, nature. This is reflected not only in these drawings, but also in Zheng Bo’s broader artistic practice (films, installations, collaborative practices). Zheng Bo’s approach to ecologies is an attempt at re-focusing our collective attention to all the elements around us, so as to allow ourselves to truly see: plants, animals, insects, life.