Trevor Yeung
Mr. Suspended Cuddle (red), 2019

Trevor Yeung’s work has always been about control, he says –and plants. The artist (…) describes himself as a horticulturalist: (…) “I learned how important it was to provide the right conditions to sustain life,” Yeung recalls in his Hong Kong studio, which is filled with palms, small trees, and shrubs. “Being aware of this power started to shape me.” Yeung made his first plant work in 2011, just after graduation. (…) Mr. Suspended Cuddles (2019) [an installation made the same year as Mr. Suspended Cuddles (Red)] uses yellow and blue ratchet straps to horizontally suspend money trees in reference to the 2018 ‘Super Typhoon’ Mangkhut that brought Hong Kong to a standstill. Referring to events stemming from the natural world that forced people into isolation, [Trevor’s installations featuring pachira trees] highlight the inescapable causality that binds humans with nature, which the money tree parallels in its mortal coil. Tied together by human hands to grow as one, each pachira has found itself within a closed loop, after all. “The way they are bonded is beautiful,” Yeung muses, “but imagine: as each trunk grows thicker they start to press down on each other, and if one dies the rest go with it. It’s a disaster.”

Excerpts from Stephanie Bailey, “Artist Trevor Yeung’s ode to plant life and cruising”, published on August 21, 2023 on artbasel.com