Two cotton flowers

Morning Dew series works are distributed throughout the exhibition hall. The dew on the ground is the stars in the sky; the artist Zheng Jiang likens the various images appearing in his works to morning dew or nighttime stars, representing the crystallization of his personal experiences. The palm-fiber bed and tuff are the key media materials that require particular attention in this series—both are closely tied to the artist's hometown of Jinyun County in Zhejiang Province and to his individual memories of growing up. Through the adhesive relationship between materials and imagery, they convey a unique symbiosis between region and culture, and between humanity and nature.

Palm is a tropical and subtropical plant unique to southern China. The palm-fiber bed, woven from palm fibers, is a traditional type of bedding specific to the Jiangnan region of China, carrying many of the artist's bodily memories. It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that the palm-fiber bed was gradually replaced and eventually withdrew from the historical stage. Tuff also comes from the artist's hometown, and his father had been a stonemason quarrying tuff since the 1960s. In the 1990s, tuff as a building material was gradually replaced by red bricks and other construction materials, and the local industry of quarrying and stonecutting also became a thing of the past. Born in the 1980s, Zheng Jiang grew up with many moments closely connected to tuff and palm-fiber beds. The plants and flowers in his memory, as well as the various things he encountered, are reshaped through tuff, crystallized upon the palm-fiber bed where he slept every night, forming a retrospective and reconstruction of memory. And the palm-fiber beds and tuff, now stripped of their practical value, are imbued with enduring significance through the artist's memory.