by Artist (11)
Military Foliage #28
201021st Century
14 1/4 in. x 8 3/4 in. (36.2 cm x 22.23 cm)
Binh Danh, Asian American, b. 1977
Object Type:
Photography and Video
Creation Place:
North America, United States, California
Medium and Support:
Chlorophyll print and resin
Credit Line:
Gift of the Artist
Accession Number:
2010.33.1
Binh Danh is a Vietnamese-born photographer and visual artist whose artwork investigates his Vietnamese heritage and our collective memory of war. Danh immigrated with his parents to California in 1979. Although he was too young to remember the horrors of the Vietnam War, he evokes the death, loss, and trauma his family experienced through his choice of haunting imagery. Danh’s work both represents his family history and transcends specific details to form commonalities among individuals and open up space for the stories yet to be told.
Exemplified in his Military Foliage series, Danh utilizes a specific organic technique of his own invention to create his art, producing what is known as a chlorophyll print, which embeds photographic images onto various types of leaves through the process of photosynthesis. Once Danh has procured what he believes to be a suitable leaf—many of which are from his mother’s garden—he places a negative over the leaf then exposes it to sunlight for a number of days until the green pigments of the leaf reveal a monochrome image. If he is satisfied with the finished product, he casts it in a block of resin, encapsulating it permanently.
Exemplified in his Military Foliage series, Danh utilizes a specific organic technique of his own invention to create his art, producing what is known as a chlorophyll print, which embeds photographic images onto various types of leaves through the process of photosynthesis. Once Danh has procured what he believes to be a suitable leaf—many of which are from his mother’s garden—he places a negative over the leaf then exposes it to sunlight for a number of days until the green pigments of the leaf reveal a monochrome image. If he is satisfied with the finished product, he casts it in a block of resin, encapsulating it permanently.
Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:
- Binh Danh: Collecting Memories Mills College Art Museum , 8/21/2010 - 12/12/2010
- Cross Section: Recent Acquisitions Mills College Art Museum , 7/16/2014 - 8/31/2014
- Shifting Terrains Mills College Art Museum , 9/10/2022 - 2/18/2023
Dimensions
- Frame Dimensions: 15 3/4 in. x 10 3/8 in. x 1 1/8 in. (40.01 cm x 26.35 cm x 2.86 cm)
- Artwork Dimensions: 14 1/4 x 8 3/4 in. (361.95 x 222.25 mm)
Bibliography List
This object has the following bibliographic references:
- Lori Chinn and Moira Roth. Binh Danh: Collecting Memories. Binh Danh: Collecting Memories Mills College Art Museum. Oakland, CA, 2010
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