Artwork Appreciation
South Sea lsland Scene & Elephant is a childlike sculpture created by artist Yeh Yi-Li. She took the elephant, which she had made from clay and fired in the kiln, and stood it on a sphere made of plastic, a newer medium, to highlight through contrast the difference between “ancient” and “modern.” She also used plastic Lego blocks to form a variety of plants and animals symbolic of South Sea islands, thus once again forming a contrast between “quick modern” and “time-consuming” products of the kiln. Although the work is titled South Sea lsland Scene & Elephant, what the artist presents is not a landscape, but rather a fragmentary concatenation of various items relating to the word xiang (elephant, image) or “South Sea Islands, and then randomly stacking them into the sculpture to satirize today’s news media, particularly its practice of using “clickbait” with headlines instead of seeking truth. In other words, the sculpture is intended to show the state of information fragmentation in today’s society.