Glittering Skyline

作品賞析

In the long, narrow visual space of this work, Glittering Skyline, black smoke stretches across the sea, almost completely obscuring the small island behind it. Sparks glint from the sea surface. Against this immense structure is a small, weak paper boat in the center, but the story line of this painting is driven along by this little protagonist. This surreal, slightly fantastic scene before us is actually derived from real events—the inspiration comes from photos of oil well explosions. The difference here is that the artist, Lai Yueh-Hung, packages the disastrous scene in a magnificent way, with bright stars shining through the dense smoke, as if it were a nebula. Lai sprayed the paint by hand, which means that he could not precisely control the size and position of the dots, but it did fill the composition with surprises. The truth of the scene is wrapped in a resplendent icing that blurs the focus, so that we are drawn away from the reality and cannot see the truth any more. Lai uses his creations to re-interpret events in order to find new ways of viewing the world.