We first launched Chinese artist Jacky Tsai’s Life-sized Floral Skullptures at Christies in October 2012 when we displayed them at the Multiplied Art Fair. Taking pride of place on plinths in the centre of the Eyestorm stand, with one displayed directly in front of Tsai’s new limited edition screenprints Soul Harvest and Golden Harvest (which were also launched at the fair and have since sold out in their entirety),
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 2 and
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 4 were the topic of conversation for many admirers who were fascinated by their detail and craftsmanship.
Since then Jacky and his assistant Linda - who has been instrumental throughout the creation process of these unique works - have been gradually making different ‘Skullptures’ to complete the series of 10, and today sees the release of the most recent three on Eyestorm:
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 6,
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 7 and
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 10.
Not necessarily made in numeric order, the colour combinations used for each piece are significant for the artist.
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 1 which essentially opened the series was predominantly silver in colour, and
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 10, officially the final piece, is made up of different hues of glittering gold to signify its importance as the last. Those that come in between have been blends of blues, purples, greys and greens. The number four is homophonous to the word ‘death’ in Chinese, however Jacky offsets this by making
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 4 out of leather in different shades of the colour red, which traditionally symbolises good fortune and joy; by creating this juxtaposition, Jacky is playing with ideas of meanings and representations, a running theme that is present throughout his working practice.
Those of you familiar with Jacky’s work will be aware that skulls have featured heavily over the past couple of years. Beginning with
Floral Skull, his screenprint edition released in 2011, he went on to produce Eyestorm publications ‘Soul Harvest’ and ‘Golden Harvest’ in 2012, followed by their cousins
Vermilion Garden and
Vermilion Light earlier this year.
The sculptures have very much been in the spotlight in 2013, first when Eyestorm showed Life-sized
Life-sized Floral Skullpture 1 at an art fair in New York in April (where it sold on the opening night), and then in London in July, when for three weeks, four of them were displayed at Harvey Nichols department store alongside other pieces of Jacky’s artwork to celebrate the launch of the artist’s fashion range. Amongst the pieces on show was a huge Floral Skull Leather Sculpture that stands over a metre tall and acted as the centre piece to the exhibition, drawing in shoppers that wanted a closer look. In addition to this, in May he displayed a large-scale white skull sculpture at Hong Kong’s prestigious retail store Lane Crawford alongside his set designs in a show celebrating the meeting of fashion and art.
Jacky’s next project with Eyestorm, which we’ll be discussing with him over the coming weeks, once again uses the skull as a starting point but the results will be very different. Watch this space for more in the autumn.
The three new Life-sized Floral Skullptures can be seen on Jacky’s Eyestorm page, along with limited edition prints by the artist,
here.