May all our graces someday flower:

Pow Marin’s Life Is Full of Flowers

It’s often easier to talk about the soft beauty of flowers, and why not: flora—or anything in a state of bloom—is easily one of nature’s most obvious symbols of beauty and bounty. There’s less talk about the chaos that comes with growth; death, decay, and the carnivorous and violent nature of life on the brink of change.

In Life is Full of Flowers, artist Pow Marin peels back the petals and reveals a different side to his constant use of flowers and facades. In these series, he ponders on flowers as a point of meditation about life as an essentially beautiful but also overwhelming experience. Marin feels the heady sensations of getting lost in the sauce—both beauty and terror—to the point of suffocation and paralysis. Like most of us, he finds it difficult to admit that he isn’t immune to the effects of viewing his own life through the lens of social media. “Am I doing enough?” “Should I push myself more?” “Is this what I really want?” he would find himself asking, finding it hard to shake off comparisons to other people who seem to be just coasting through their best lives all the time (or so it seems).

This show is Marin’s own self-soothing against the rough edges of having to always put on an upbeat facade to cope. Recognizing his own privilege, he finds it hard to complain at the risk of seeming ungrateful for a job others would risk everything for. To add to that, don’t our internal battles and societal pressures pale in comparison to the world’s more imminently burning questions? (No, not really). Marin lets flowers ground him and bring him back full circle. His constant companions meticulously worked into his tender illustrations, Marin meditates on the creation of his own “flowers” as part of a slowing down, coming back to his own body, and concentrating on the things that truly nourish his heart and soul (“and hopefully, everything will be alright”).

Just like the mind bending number of ways flowers follow their own seasons, may we recognize our seasons when they arrive too. Take after the monocarpic Century Plant, which blooms every one hundred years as it nears the end of its lifetime, or after the symmetrical fractal magnificence of a Romanesco broccoli (broccolis don’t even get enough recognition for their florets). May we all see ourselves and each other through our seasons, either gently, by the hand / or joltingly, like a message from the future.

Nikki Ignacio