AOTM: Whisper for Hope: Purple Flowers by Louise Low

A sense of movement stands out when looking at Whisper for Hope: Purple Flowers by Louise Low. There’s little doubt that the main figures are orchids of different colours, spread out across the canvas like a hand fan. 

However, the addition of lines—evoking fibrous strands from a flower’s filament or a mango stone where the pulp has been sucked away—gives the assemblage a new look, like a whirlpool in motion. 

Instead of broad or long-petalled blooms, the images resemble limber dancers. A double take of a burgundy orchid in the middle ‘unveils’ a Sufi dervish in devotional whirling. Two white orchids to the bottom centre and left could be ballerinas in flowy tutus. Wedged between the two however, is a large structure that looks like a cross, keeping the flowers apart. The presence of a large circle at the top tells us that it is actually the female gender symbol. The addition of the symbol seems almost heavy-handed, like it was included to make absolutely sure viewers knew that the painting bears feminine energy. 

Low’s practice is no stranger to gender encapsulations. She grabbed headlines at a 2014 exhibition in Penang for “Fatal Attraction,” her installation art that used rows upon rows of bra cups. Based on feedback from visitors, her subsequent bra art series, Lean on You and Me, sought to start a cultural conversation, touching upon the superstition in Chinese culture regarding women’s undergarments. 

Whisper for Hope: Purple Flowers shares the sense of motion with her installation art, such as bra cups covering every inch of a four-wheel drive vehicle, or creeping along a doorway like a plant. But in the painting, flowers swaying in an air of stillness give off a different energy, one more soothing than shocking.