© Rose Farrell & George Parkin, Acupuncture Cow, from the series A Thousand Golden Remedies, 2000
© Rose Farrell & George Parkin, Anatomical Cow, from the series A Thousand Golden Remedies, 2000
«A Thousand Golden Remedies is a mixture of the planned, the pragmatic and the inspired. Walking the streets of Beijing Farrell and Parkin discovered the large emporiums where white-coated assistants presided over counters of herbal medicines or the stock-in-trade of the acupuncturist. From here were sourced the Ginseng root, seahorse, Lingzhi fungus and dried Gecko lizard; the plastic model dog, horse, cow and pig that feature in A Thousand Golden Remedies. The images retain a curiosity for the uncommon, but the mystery now hinges on a cultural difference, not the characteristic historical distance. Equally uncharacteristic, the works are sparse, almost cryptic, word-pictures. The resulting composition is in part, I suspect, a response to Chinese language, in which meaning is built up into a single, potent ideogram. Links are almost architectural, as in the wooden base of the acupuncture model, or literal as in the tied bandage/splint. The series was realised with calligraphic speed and facility.»
Merryn Gates
More of their work here
N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A, 