Artwork Appreciation
Artist CHEN Ching-Yao’s is adept at photographing people dressed in comical costumes, inspiring people to rethink the global issues that lurk in daily life. In Blossoming in the Backyard—Chushingura, the artist and models pose as people of the Edo Period of Japan in a reenactment of a Japanese Chushingura TV drama. It’s a story of loyalty in which a group of samurai seek to avenge their master’s death. The artist interprets the story’s last scene, in which the samurai steal into a house to kill the antagonist. If you look closely, the warriors in the painting are all played by women. Far in the background you can see the presidential office building in Taipei. Chen groups global consumer logos in a witty and whimsical way to form a kind of cultural jigsaw puzzle.