Rose in Winter by Cai Zhisong
Large-scale Rose Stainless Steel Sculpture
For Lancôme’s Art of Absolue Exhibition 2023, Somexing Artistic commissioned Chinese sculptor Cai Zhisong to create Rose in Winter, a monumental sculpture celebrating the eternal dialogue between love, beauty, and time.
Drawing inspiration from the Absolue Perpetual Rose, the emblem of Lancôme’s philosophy of everlasting beauty, Cai Zhisong explores the fragile strength of emotion through a sculptural language of contrast and permanence. His artistic vision transforms the natural ephemerality of the rose into an enduring form — one that speaks to the resilience of love and the timeless grace of beauty.
Under Somexing Artistic’s curatorial direction, Rose in Winter becomes a poetic meditation on how art and materiality can capture what is fleeting, turning the momentary into the eternal.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Rose in Winter
Entitled Rose in Winter, Cai Zhisong’s sculpture reimagines the rose — symbol of both love and transience — as an eternal bloom forged in stainless steel. The artist replaces the fragility of petals with a medium of strength and luminosity, creating roses that never wither, never fade, and remain forever radiant through the passage of time.
The stainless steel surface, polished to a gentle yet eye-catching shine, embodies the dual nature of love — tender yet unyielding, delicate yet powerful. Standing in monumental scale, the rose invites viewers to reflect on the cycles of passion and loss, of blooming and decline, while affirming that love endures beyond change.
Technique
Stainless Steel
Format
350cm x 330cm x 250cm
Project
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cai Zhisong
Chinese contemporary sculptor, Cai Zhisong, a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, is an artist of international renown. Cai creates sculptures with a contemporary material language. Cai’s artistic creation and academic activity have a wide effect on the wider community, and he actively promotes the fusion of art and other fields of society. His vision is a strong fit for creative brand collaborations.
He has already made a name for himself among the young artists of his time, holding his first exhibition in Beijing in 1999. He received the 2001 Taylor Prize at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, the Rockfeller Chinese Outstanding Young Artist. The artist is also one of the most auctioned Chinese sculptors in the world.
