Note

on Su Wu Herding Sheep, a hand scroll by Wai Pongyu Occupy Central period) and social philosophies, through his Chimera
Paul Serfaty, October, 2016 Bhuddha series also initiated in 2014.

In Su Wu Herding Sheep, a hand scroll created in 2015, he eschews the
At a time when younger members of Hong Kong society - especially the detailed waves of lines explored in his early works and the multi-
more liberal minded - refuse to offer the governments of Hong Kong or element detail of his Moment of Truth assemblies of natural objects,
China the respect they desire, a Hong Kong contemporary artist has settling instead for a simple line drawing in three parts presenting Su
drawn inspiration from Chinese history and culture, to redeploy a Wu and a sheep/goat.
traditional story in contemporary context, while also clearly expressing
through the simplest artistic analogy, the essential unity of living beings Relatively simple and direct, the piece draws clearly and directly on the
within our universe. spirit of his Chimera Buddha works, which in turn expressed in the
realm of ideas, what Moments of Truth achieved in that of objects: the
Su Wu (, 140 B.C.E. - 60 B.C.E.), a diplomat and statesman of China's essential unity of the worlds physical, human and moral components.
Han Dynasty, has long been respected as an example of loyalty to the
good and the right, despite suffering hardships over many years for Unlike the Chimera Buddha works, Su Wu does not express the moral
adherence to those principles. values behind the image through words (words form the aureole
surrounding the Chimera Buddhas head). Su Wus story is so well
Wai Pongyu, who graduated from Hong Kongs Chinese University in known that its applicability to Hong Kong in 2015-16, and the sharp
2006 and whose works adorn The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco contrast between the self-serving attitudes of Hong Kong government
and Oxfords Ashmolean Museum, attacks a range of issues through his leaders and Su Wus loyalty to enduring social values is evident.
art. Sometimes communication through language, at others the
integration of widely disparate objects within a single picture frame, Wais treatment of line reminds one of his self-portrait from 2006 and
and more recently social issues (the Dauntlessly series from 2014s of his treatment of the details of the figures of and surrounding the
Buddha in Chimera Buddha. An association of youth (himself?) with and animal is then affirmed as we pass onto the third part of the scroll.
social righteousness is implied. Analysis of the Su Wu imagery shows Su Wu rushes on, away from the goat but transformed, fused with
how tradition, politics, myth and metaphysical perceptions can be those whom he tends, by the acquisition of two curled goats horns.
expressed even in a simple drawing.
Those horns in turn conjure up the ambiguity of Wais Chimera Buddha
To achieve this, the work departs from tradition in various ways. This images, which possess a forgiving Buddhist core, yet are filled with
Su Wu is young and dynamic, dancing with energy, his staff held high. elements of Dionysian excess and pantheism - only hinted at here -
Traditional renderings emphasise Su Wus physical age, leaning on his evoking the dream/
staff. Wai expresses his high moral energy through his powerful nightmare scene in
movement and fearless posture. Benjamin Brittens
opera, Death in Venice
Next, this Su Wu is not where Thomas Manns
merely tending his sheep vision is compressed:
but dynamically interacting Come, beat on the
with them. As his figure drums. Stagger in the
passes through the reeling dance. Goad the
foreground of the work to beasts with garlanded
form, in the second, central staves. Seize their horns.
portion, a man-goat, the Ride into the throng.
human and animal bodies
appear to fuse as their lines But to extend our
of motion intersect. analysis further than the
essential goodness of Su
This Su Wu reminds one of Wu, into the idea that
the Centaur but also of the even the bad is a
Buddha-Pieta-Hare figure corollary of the good, is
that springs up, dominating unnecessary.
the centre of Wais Chimera
Buddha works, morally For the core themes
uniting man and animals in this artists response to Joseph Buys identified above - of the unity of man and nature, of justice and
performance How to Explain Paintings to a Dead Hare. simplicity, of an exchange of state amongst all things and between all
ideas - sit very comfortably within Wais oeuvre, which has consistently
The spirit of sharing even ones body with the beasts has Buddhist expressed contraries as complementary, not as confrontational.
echoes too, in the story of the Bodhisattva Mahasattva who gave his
body to a starving tigress; the expression of commonality between man This is a classically Asian perspective from a clearly modern artist.