Secret Garden

Over the Influence HK is excited to present Lucien Smith’s first solo show with the gallery, as well as his debut show in Hong Kong! Titled Secret Garden the exhibition is a collection of brand new paintings inspired by flora and fauna seed packets. The show will be on view at OTI HK from 20 May to 19 June 2021.

The Secret Garden paintings began as watercolors in 2012. Lucien Smith created the series as a Memento mori. Prior to embarking on this collection, he did not know that seed packets purchased at hardware stores had a shelf life of only one to two years. If they were not planted within this timeframe they would lie fallow for eternity. Something about this triggered his memory about Jeff Koon’s collective body of works known as The New, and his promise of eternal freshness from repurposed vacuum cleaners. With Secret Garden Lucien Smith is more interested in the natural world’s inherent obsolescence, than in consumer household appliances.