Jiang Zhi’s flowers ‘die’ before our eyes –set aflame, they are on the brink of death, not yet devoured. It is this ‘decisive moment’ we see –a fleeting, brazen instant, of mortality in a nutshell. Time is caught in its flight: each photograph is a powerful memento mori, like a time capsule, a miniature image of death. Jiang Zhi’s photography explores the metaphysics of mortality. He makes us reconsider the ephemeral, the evanescent nature of things in the face of death. Death and love are melted together like Eros and Thanatos, but here, beauty overrides the macabre. In a very subtle and nuanced way, Jiang Zhi infuses this curse of death with touches of elegance –the flowers are almost dead, and at the same time peculiarly splendid. Death is around the corner, awaits them, but they don’t care, or at least, they resist—in vain. Like a vanity, each snapshot is also a painting.