Oil on canvas

125 x 125 cm. x 2 49 1/5 x 49 1/5 in. x 2

PROVENANCE
Eslite Gallery, Taipei
Important Private Collection, Asia

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist, issued by Eslite Gallery, Taipei

Kuo Chwen's Pop-Style Q&A
Kuo Chwen, born in Pingtung in 1965, graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1994. Two years after graduating, he was invited to exhibit at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Eslite Gallery in Taipei. His works often feature a skeleton as the protagonist, since it represents “the true essence of life” as well as reflects anxiety, enthusiasm, and defiance of death in humorous painting language. After 2007, due to his immense suffering as a result of colorectal cancer, Kuo began to explore the themes of life and religion in his creations.

The diptych Q & A combines humor and philosophical deliberation, the works presented in the form of double paintings. The left part represents the “question” (Q), the right being the “answer” (A). The protagonist of the picture, who is the artist himself, is discussing life issues with his pet dog. In Q, the dog barks twelve times, once for each Buddhist principle of the twelve nidānas (or “twelve links of dependent origination”): ignorance, formation, consciousness, name and form, senses, contact, feeling or sensation, craving, clinging, becoming or worldly existence, birth, and aging and death. In A, twelve corresponding answers are provided by the skeleton. The work shows human fear of death in a witty and funny way and tries to interpret the twelve nidānas. An example is how the speech bubble that explains the “clinging” nidāna says, “Praise me; worship me; surrender to me; support me; blindly follow me,” which indicates that the human heart is full of greed, with people therefore creating their own karma by trying to get what they like for their own enjoyment. Another bubble (“And let me die; let me decay; let me be gray; let me be born again”) tries to explain the relationship between the “birth” and “aging and death” nidānas, the karma created in this becoming the reason for future rebirth. Kuo's work approaches difficult issues from a modern and colloquial standpoint. A, rich in content, forms a strong contrast with the empty composition of Q and thereby forms strong visual tension.

Price estimate:
HKD: 200,000 – 300,000
USD: 25,500 – 38,300

Auction Result:
HKD: --