In this series, I inscribe images of the Vietnam War onto and into tropical plant leaves. One summer, I became inspired to experiment with photosynthesis and plant pigments after noticing how grass changed color beneath a garden hose left out on the lawn. That observation led me to create my first chlorophyll prints.
The process harnesses photosynthesis itself—the life-giving interaction of chlorophyll and light—to record images directly onto leaves. These leaves are then preserved in resin, like biological specimens prepared for scientific study.
At its core, this work explores the idea of elemental transmigration: the decomposition and recomposition of matter into new forms. The war images don’t merely rest on the surface of the leaves—they are embedded within them, part of the organic material. The leaves carry the continuum of war. They hold the residue of the Vietnam War: bombs, blood, sweat, tears, and metal. The dead have returned to the soil, becoming part of Vietnam’s landscape through cycles of birth, decay, and renewal. As matter is never created or destroyed—only transformed—the physical and psychic remnants of the Vietnam (American) War persist in the land. Through this transformation, war becomes inseparable from the living environment.
All works are “Chlorophyll print and resin” in various dimensions.
