Chinese tea · chrome letters, one drip
The name melts; the leaf stays dry
Thirty-four Chinese teas set under names rendered as poured chrome, with amber caught in the reflections and one letter always running. The photograph underneath is untouched.
Chinese tea · chrome letters, one drip
Thirty-four Chinese teas set under names rendered as poured chrome, with amber caught in the reflections and one letter always running. The photograph underneath is untouched.
3 teas · 3 categories
Here the name is not set, it is cast: the letterform is treated as an object with thickness, weight and a surface that reflects whatever is around it. That gives the page a second material to work against the first, because tea leaf is matte and irregular and chrome is neither. The amber trapped in the reflections is borrowed from the liquor of the tea itself, which is how the two halves of the image stay related instead of merely stacked. A single drip per composition is the whole gesture — repeat it and it becomes an effect, keep it to one and it stays a moment. Backgrounds are kept empty, white or smoke, because a rendered object needs somewhere to throw its light. The photograph of the leaf is never rendered, retouched or lit to match; it is the fixed point everything else is measured against.