The first flowering plant emerged over a hundred million years before the earliest human ever gazed on the alluring symmetry of their floral architecture. The explosion of botanical diversity which appeared on the fossil records was described by Darwin as the ‘abominable mystery’ and belies the anthropocentric conceit that their beauty exists for our sole appreciation.

The German philosopher, Goethe, imagined the archetypal proto-plant and labelled it urpflanze, a Protean plant that contained within it all possible permutations and future expressions a plant can assume.

Phylogeny of Desire is an art exhibition showcasing a selection of works from artists, botanists, and plant enthusiasts who draw inspiration from the astounding morphological diversity and the intriguing ecological complexities of the plant kingdom—particularly the unique assemblage of Philippine flora—and draw resonance in the fundamental processes of art making.

The exhibit also pays tribute to and commemorates the late Dr. Leonardo Co, arguably the most important field botanist and plant taxonomist the country has produced in the last few generations and whose tragic, untimely demise 12 years ago left a gaping unquantifiable void in the world of Philippine Botany at this critical juncture in time.

Co was a consummate scientist who expressed the need for art in botany and its vital role in curing ‘plant blindness’, a seemingly contemporary urban malaise. Plant blindness is the inability to see or recognize the presence of plants in our surroundings and our incapacity to acknowledge its invaluable role in the environment.  

This estrangement and affliction grow exponentially as the natural world incrementally recedes beyond the horizon; and as we envelop ourselves with controlled, artificial constructs that we supplant and label as reality.

The representation of plants in the art world is largely peripheral; ie. in landscape paintings as components of a larger composition or as subject matter for still life, as fruits foliage or more often as memento mori, a severed flower symbolizing the fleeting transitory nature of existence or the fragility and ephemerality of beauty.

Artists are naturally drawn to the magnificent morphological structures and patterns that occur in the botanical realm and seek to define or interpret the underlying beauty on their terms. They create poetic fiction to fill the gaps of understanding with metaphorical concepts that approximate a representation of the natural world.

The sensuous discerning eye of artists and taxonomists is an essential instrument that both heavily rely on to distinguish subtle nuances in form. The botanical representations in the exhibit  provides the substrate for the artworks to gain traction and provide a counterpoint in viewing the works individually and the show in its entirety.

The selection of works traces the polarity and the tenuous relationship between art and science and harness the oscillating force of attraction and repulsion between the two disciplines and seek a common fertile ground for the cross pollination and synthesis of form, imagery, and ideas.