Paddling

作品賞析

Wu Yu-Ting’s Paddling is one part of a tetraptych that pays tribute to the magical realist movie Moonrise Kingdom. The fish-people in the canoes are a rebus of the artist’s sigil, “Yuren,” meaning mermaid. The fish-people, which have no individual expression or appearance, are like canned sardines—mass-processed to uniform specifications—and their images are created through rubbing. However, as they travel by canoe, they also suggest modern people who blindly pursue fashion and follow worldly standards will be reborn into a colorful and astounding natural world. The zigzag course of the river brings out a deep spatial sense, and every corner of the work hides an incredible little ingenuity, such as the whale on the right side of the painting—it is something that cannot appear in fresh water. These details enable viewers to sense the presence of a rich narrative.