Alice Riehl’s Racines series emerged from a visit to Singapore’s Botanical Gardens, where the artist was researching orchids for a commission for a Singaporean client. As the national symbol of Singapore, the orchid held particular significance, but it was the plant’s intricate root systems that captured Riehl’s imagination. Astonished by the dense, sculptural formations of aerial roots growing in their natural habitat, she began to recognize a visual language that resonated with the lacework she was meticulously developing in her practice at the time.

Turning her attention away from the orchid’s flowers and toward its roots and leaves, Riehl transforms these organic structures into expansive wall installations. Delicate yet architectural, the works trace the complex interweaving of root networks, punctuated by clusters of leaves that bring moments of vitality and movement to the compositions. Among her early explorations of the botanical world, Racines embodies a compelling tension between the organic and the ornamental, the natural and the constructed.

Through these works, Riehl explores the idea of growth as both form and gesture, creating sculptural compositions that appear to extend beyond their physical boundaries. The installations seem to take root in the architecture itself, as though alive and still unfolding across the wall’s surface. The work is an evocative expression of the artist’s fascination with nature’s intricate patterns and its capacity for endless expansion.