Beyond Unknown

Zoophytes: hovering between animal and plant, named and unnamed — Chi Wing Lo's "biology of personal time" through ink, oil, and mixed media.

Chi Wing Lo's work centers on the Zoophyte — forms that are neither nameable species nor allegorical figures, but transient crystallizations of perception hovering between animal and plant, emergence and withdrawal. The publication unfolds across three dimensions: the rediscovery of Xiangwang, a mode of seeing that suspends purposeful search; the transformation of the labyrinth into a mode of existence where "pausing understanding" allows images to breathe before being named; and an inquiry into the scale of life — when life becomes indistinguishable from geography, as slow as mineral, or so proliferative it erases individuality, and taxonomy begins to fail. Working across architecture, design, and painting, Lo uses ink, oil, acrylic, silver leaf, and mixed media on linen and rice paper. His restrained palette — deep black, newborn pink, ancient grass green, shimmering silver white — allows translucent forms to surface from darkness like memory before it solidifies, unfolding what he calls a "biology of personal time."