A Modern Odyssey: New Works by Yu Peng
(May 1998)
This exhibition, corresponding to Kaikodo Journal, volume VIII, was held in the New York gallery from May 16 to June 6, 1998. This, Kaikoko’s fifth exhibition devoted to contemporary Chinese painting, was devoted to the works of Yu Peng, an artist who constantly entrances and surprises with his unorthodox and most untraditional imagery. The overt but paradoxically innocent sexuality reminds one of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, as do the birds frequently appearing in unexpected contexts, and the seemingly chaotic juxtaposition of old and new, urban and rural, mundane and spiritual. One might easily lose sight of Yu Peng’s firm foundation in both the classical and literati traditions.
However, the manipulation of nature to express human emotions has a long history in the poetry of China while the literati tradition more specifically had always held the perfect work of art to be an amalgamation of poetry, painting, and calligraphy, so exquisitely manifest in the paintings presented in this exhibition.
