Lán Zhī Mèi – The Beauty of Orchids

All the illustrations in this gallery were prepared for the conservation project 蘭之魅 Lán Zhī Mèi – The Beauty of Orchids, between 2015 and 2016. These are endangered orchid species native to China, some of which have even lost their habitat due to human activities such as plant hunting. Through this project, we aimed to raise greater awareness of the impact of buying wild orchids for ornamental use, through a series of exhibitions across China. Specimens were collected from the nursery of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, where I spent six months preparing the initial studies for these illustrations. Once completed, all the illustrations were exhibited at five different botanic gardens across China — Xishuangbanna, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xiamen and finally Beijing — in a two-month exhibition marathon. The original artworks are now held in private collections around the world.