Healing Flowers

About “Healing Flowers”

In Korea, where I was born and where I grew up, a flower on the head of a woman traditionally signified her madness. While naturally it was often spoken in jest, still it was commonly the symbol of madness. And in the background of such women there were often painful wounds after the Korean War.

It was with that idea that I began. I wanted to place a flower on the heads of such women. Not with the sense of “You are mad,” but with “You are beautiful,” and “You are incredibly lovely -- it is not your fault.” How lovely they are when they have flowers in their hair!

I make these flowers from porcelain -- white clay. Clay comes from Mother Earth. In Mongolia, the colour white, signifying mother’s milk, is considered special. For me the porcelain flowers embodied these meanings as I place them on the heads of the women in my work. My first subject to receive a flower was my own mother. I myself was the next recipient. And after that my close friends. I wanted to give all of us the healing power that comes from Nature, from Earth, from Mother.

All of us carry many wounds, and continue living with them. I don’t know how much healing we can give each other through gestures like this. But I hope that these flowers can have some positive effect. It is perhaps the most I can hope for as an artist who lives together with the world. I call it the “Healing Power of a Mother’s Touch.”

Genie Kim.

www.geniekim.com