Nascent Naturalist

Multidisciplinary artist and Loewe Craft Prize 2023 finalist WANBING HUANG talks about drawing inspiration from nature and Chinese mythology, Bill Viola and the creative things that can be done with ramie.

- GENNADY ORESHKIN

Nature has long been a muse to the creative mind, from prehistoric cave-dwellers to modern masters such as Damien Hirst. Indeed, the interpretive potential of natural wonders is boundless and only limited by the artist's imagination, whether it's a chrysalis that blossoms into a gown or, as with the works of visionary Chinese multidisciplinary artist Wanbing Huang, a finalist for the illustrious Loewe Craft Prize 2023, a concept of human existence that takes the form of a single egg.

Huang began her career in fashion design. As a testament to her endless search for the new art of textile, Huang sculpts microscopic botanic shapes and seems to thrive on pushing the boundaries of genres - blurring what once seemed black and white and translating her fashion tenets to sculpture. It was no surprise that her work for Loewe Craft Prize received high accolades: her egg-shaped sculpture made from layers of fibres was an eloquent tribute to her continual fascination with nature and the possibilities unlocked by unconventional materials.

What was the inspiration Loewe Craft Prize piece?