STORY BEHIND THE ART OF SEONGWEON AHN

Abundant Future: Cultivating Diversity in Garden, Farm, and Field

Fordhook Zucchini

Cucurbita pepo 'Fordhook'

When I heard about the subject of the exhibition – heirloom crops and wild relatives, I remembered to take a lot of photos of beautiful zucchini ‘Fordhook’, found at a children’s program in an outdoor vegetable experience center in the World Cup Park in Korea. The program was designed for children to look deeply into plants for a long period of time and to help with their harvest.

Zucchini is a very popular food ingredient in Korea, although it originated in Mexico and Central America. It is in the limelight as a familiar and healthy food ingredient with folic acid, vitamin C and low calories. In fact, I decided on the challenge of drawing zucchini because more viewers would be familiar with the subject, rather than drawing a unique and unfamiliar subject. However, this presents some difficulty because viewers can notice mistakes, since they know the subject so well.

Until now, I have drawn mostly fruits and flowers with their leaves, and this is the first time I chose zucchini as my subject. Although I considered a vertical composition which is frequently used in drawings of this subject, I decided on a totally different, fresh, horizontal composition for this drawing. With the central focus being the zucchini, I tried to have auxiliary leaves and stems less emphasized. I made an effort to describe the texture using more white colored pencil, in order to express the natural color of the zucchini as closely as possible. Usually I don’t use much white in my drawings.

Lastly, thanks to this exhibition, I’m so delighted to have this great opportunity to appreciate heirloom plants.

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Read more about this artist’s work: 23rd Annual