Works

Things I make.

Works made slowly.

Painting is a way for me to observe people, nature, memory, and the small moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

Goldfish have appeared in my work since my early years as an artist. Over time, they became more than a subject — humanised figures through which I explore identity, intimacy, sexuality, memory and the behaviour of people within society.

Working between Chinese Gongbi painting and Japanese Nihonga, I use traditional materials and techniques within a practice that remains personal and contemporary.

Across different bodies of work, the meaning of the goldfish changes — sometimes an individual, sometimes desire or memory, and elsewhere a way of observing society itself.

春夢 · Chūn Mèng - Illusion

Portraits of encounters, memories and desire, retold through the image of the goldfish.

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濁世 · Zhuó Shì The Mortal World

A reflection on power, human nature and the struggle to remain oneself within a troubled world.

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雙囍 · Shuāng Xǐ Double Happiness
Two goldfish share an open space, carrying a wish for companionship and happiness.

雙囍 · Shuāng Xǐ — Double Happiness

A single goldfish, life-size, suspended in a generous expanse of space. This was where 雙囍 began. My work is guided by a deep appreciation for Song dynasty aesthetics, and I am drawn as much to the space surrounding a subject as to the subject itself. I was single then, and the fish held something of me. Where some viewers felt loneliness, I saw the unknown—all that might still arrive.

Commissions for couples and friends brought a second fish into the paintings. I found pleasure in these pairings. The space remained, now shared by two, and the series gradually took shape.

I return to the Chan saying 見山是山，見山不是山，見山祇是山: mountains are mountains, then no longer mountains, then simply mountains again. A fish may carry a likeness, a feeling, a story. It may also remain a fish. The surrounding space leaves these possibilities open.

囍 holds two 喜 characters together. 喜 appears in both my grandfather’s name and my artist name, giving this familiar symbol of marriage and doubled happiness a private resonance. Dedicated to my grandparents, these paintings carry a wish for companionship and shared joy into the lives of those who collect them.

春色 · Chūn Sè — Colours of Spring

春色 often begins in spring, with a small painting of a single goldfish. A different body, a turn of the fins, a new encounter of colours. These studies follow the pleasure of looking closely, each fish an occasion to explore another form in the bright palette of the season.

Some return in larger paintings, where they meet images of men. In this company, their shapes and colours acquire another charge. The sensual becomes more present; an erotic suggestion begins to surface.

My choice of fish draws on 如魚得水—like a fish finding water—and the intimacy held in that image of one finding its element in another. 春色 carries a similar ambiguity. The colours of spring open onto thoughts of desire, allowing the eye to wander between them.

春色 · Chūn Sè Colours of Spring
The colours of spring unfold into desire, as goldfish meet the male figure.

Stories & Symbols

Some stories stay long after the book is closed. A character, a strange creature, a scene half remembered becomes something I want to meet again through painting.

I return to 紅樓夢 (Dream of the Red Chamber), 牡丹亭 (The Peony Pavilion) and its 遊園驚夢 (A Stroll in the Garden, an Interrupted Dream), 山海經 (The Classic of Mountains and Seas), and the Japanese 古事記 (Kojiki). Their images mingle with my own, finding new forms as I revisit them.

Numbers enter this world too. Five and nine carry cultural and philosophical associations; 五福, the Five Blessings, brings wishes for a fortunate life. Their presence adds a quieter layer to the paintings, something to discover beneath the first impression.

Some works stand alone. Others leave a thought unfinished, inviting me back. Together, they form a growing collection of encounters between inherited stories, symbols and my own imagination.

For the art page:

Stories & Symbols
Stories linger, symbols gather, and familiar worlds take new forms in paint.

男色 · Nán Sè — Fascination

A glimpse of skin, the turn of a body, a detail the eye returns to. 男色 begins in these moments of attention, when looking lingers and the imagination moves closer.

Desire inhabits what is only partly revealed. A gesture or a concealed form leaves something unfinished, allowing the viewer to linger between what is seen and what is imagined. At times, a particular detail takes on the intensity of fetish, holding a fascination of its own.

These paintings follow the quiet pull of men—their beauty, their presence, and the fantasies that gather around them.