YU PENG OFFICIAL SITE

 

The work of Yu Peng, for example, draws readily from the vocabularies and techniques of Chinese ink painting but at the same time subtly undermines the authority of that tradition. And he does so, in part, by fusing the language of high art with that of popular art. Yu has keenly studied the mainstream tradition of Chinese literati ink painting, having lived around the corner from the National Palace-Museum for most of his Life. And he has referred to the landscapes of Ming and Qing masters as an inspiration and model for his own work. Yet, his work also contains many elements which exceed the norms of that tradition. In his paintings, the scale of figure to landscape is often deliberately exaggerated to the point of distortion. Pictorial elements are dispersed across the surface of his painting to create an extreme degree of spatial fragmentation. Or sometimes they are compressed so as to create an almost claustrophobic feeling of spatial congestion. His handling of the brush seems to verge on the clumsy sometimes, and the transition between ink tones and color values can often seem abrupt.

 

Yu Peng has described his work through the traditional literati idea of zhuo, or "intentional awkwardness." At the same time, this quality of awkwardness has a great deal in common with the attributes of folk art. The influence of folk art on Yu's work can be discerned most clearly in the pair of paintings entitled Where Goes the Little Fairy?, 1990. The frontality and schematic composition of the figures, the bold contrast of brilliant colors, and the even pacing of pictorial motifs from top to bottom recall the conventions of folk art found in New Year prints and the decorative titles that adorn old temples and domestic dwellings in Taiwan.

 

Yu Peng has discussed his great attraction to folk art, particularly those forms associated with the rituals of weddings and funerals. Such folk rituals in Taiwan, I would add, often have an innately theatrical quality, complete with elaborate costumes and props. It is interesting, in this respect, to note that Yu also spent many years studying, performing, and teaching shadow puppet plays. Perhaps it is this interest in puppetry and rituals which accounts for what might be described as the theatricality of Yu's own paintings. In his work, one often finds figures and still-life elements arranged together in the shallow space of a stagelike setting. The small plants, folded screens, and other pieces of scaled-down furniture create a miniature world and an intimate backdrop for reverie, fantasy, and role-playing. In many of Yu's paintings,   this interior world melds fluidly into the exterior world of mountains and trees. Blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, near and far, Yu heightens the illusory quality of his imaginary world.

 

Rendered as a form of theater or performance, Yu's work calls into question the stability of the Chinese ink painting tradition. In a sense, he transforms that tradition itself into a kind of fiction, by assembling its fragments together in ever-shifting combinations. In a similar fashion, the deliberately naive quality of Yu's brushwork and composition works against the grain of mainstream Chinese ink painting, by subverting its standards of refinement and high polish. These elements, along with the tendency towards spatial fragmentation, accentuate the contingency of Chinese ink brush conventions. In this way, Yu highlights the displacement of that tradition into the modern world of Taiwan.

 

The dynamics at play in Yu's work may also be described in another way. In Taiwan, Chinese ink brush painting has come, in many respects, to represent the apogee of high art. With the establishment of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, the nationalist government actively promoted Chinese ink painting in the postwar years as an important national patrimony. The status of Chinese ink painting was further secured by the large number of painters who fled from mainland China to Taiwan in the late forties. These painters, who tended to paint in a conservative manner, dominated the more powerful segment of the art world through their presence as jurors for official exhibitions and as high-level administrators in art institutions. Nurtured within the environment of postwar Taiwan, Yu's work shows great awareness of and even pays homage to the established canon of Chinese ink painting. But he has also found avenues for individual invention, beyond the constraints of academic rules, through the mediation of popular forms of folk art.