Mel Chin

Mel Chin was born in Houston in 1951. He integrates ecology, botany, alchemy and many other resources into his artwork to provoke social awareness. Chin's artwork includes drawings, paintings, collages, prints, and sculptures. One of his more famous sculptures that utilizes ecology, botany, and alchemy is "Revival Field" that conjoins sculptural aesthetics and complex ideas. This piece created in 1991 is a garden built off of contaminated soil using hyperaccumulator plants that draw minerals from the soil that would otherwise be lethal to other life. These plants are harvested and burned leaving behind these expensive minerals to be resold. This process cleans the soil leading to new life.