‘Pandora’s box’, 2022
Half asleep, half awake, I looked out of the window and saw the strawberry pears (dragon fruit) on the wall in the backyard, their white blossoms turning into shiny fruit in just one moment. A perfect amount of fruit lined up on the wall, not too much and not too little, and then each fruit turned into a flower and grew again.
I rushed out of bed and ran to the fence, the air flowing with a fruity fragrance, and anxiously I plucked a red fruit peel with little green on it, which instantly turned into a dark shadow and vanished, whilst the fruit on the wall faded to black one by one. With the scent of the fruit still in my hand, I built walls of varying heights in my backyard to see more of the fruit and looked forward to the mysterious fruit growing each night, even though it was unpickable.
‘Picnic’, 2020-2021
My 'picnic' was a mysterious journey that had been carefully planned for me by the other party. From the ride to our destination and the bags he carried, I suspected that we were about to have a picnic. In a state of some trepidation, as expected, we did come to the river for a picnic. The warm winter afternoon sun shone across the meadow and river as we laid out the picnic blanket with food under the tree. Yet, as we exchanged emotions during the picnic, I gradually felt that this was not the picnic I was expecting, and the enthusiasm turned flat and sad at a different moment. What appeared to be a romantic scene with laughter on the surface was in fact all kinds of emotions piled up, and in the end, the relationship almost came to an end at the feast.
‘Picnic’ is an exploration of the relationships and bonds between people. Whether the power each one holds is balanced or not, we all need to get used to the status and preserve the equilibrium. Even if sometimes the gesture of goodwill is forcibly and violently offered by the opposite, we can only accept it. This artwork is about an open invitation to a picnic. In such a commonplace and unusual social setting, I hope to evoke audience’s recollection of a picnic story that anyone may have had.
'The Seasons' (Metaverse Ver.)
When I was with him, it was his body that I gazed at most often. The other night we were crossing the narrow pavement and the street lights were beaming down on him, walking in front of me on what looked like two walking legs, as if I couldn't see his whole body. It was like this so many times, from head to toe, I could only remember a certain part of his body and of course his voice. I suppose people can reorganise or selectively remember images from their memories. So, what about viewing the shape and appearance of people? It must be sensible to jump around too!
Epilogue
I'm actually quite fond of the metaverse. I’ve seen a VR dating app ‘Nevermet’ and an interactive game ‘Lonely Hearts Dating Agency’ by Second Life, making me want to order a VR device immediately. I love to extend the space in my work, so that the image can have a different appearance of time and space. Visually, it could be quite a trickery yet all real, and the viewer will be confused and having fun at the same time. I look forward to playing with more dimensions in my work in the future, whether it's in real or virtual space, I want to make these two lines intersect.
Wu MeiChi (b. 1989) specialises in setting up impossible scenes of vivid light and shadow with her bare hands, where the illusionary space overrides the normal. In the process of cutting the spatial dimension, ordinary objects are transformed into still lifes with a strong presence, whilst the artist’s attitude is like that of a childlike creator, who never wants to let go once her mind is open to play.