The China Project

125 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection Wilson SHIEH Wilson Shieh’s finely drawn watercolour paintings humorously comment on human relationships and broader political currents through the eroticised depiction of couples displaying animal-like attributes and tendencies. The Gallery’s six works — Bat corner ; Buffalo club ; Koala place ; Panda park ; Penguin road and Sheep station , all 1999 — show androgynous-looking couples whose gender roles are defined and revealed by their resemblance to the animals indicated in the titles, including bats, pandas and koalas (the latter perhaps inspired by Shieh’s visit to Australia for ‘The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ in 1999). Born in Hong Kong in 1970, Shieh was classically trained in traditional Chinese fine-brush painting ( gongbi ) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He uses this traditional style in a contemporary manner, and has said that [b]efore I learned the fine-brush technique, I considered this style as just a kind of antique craftsmanship. But after all, as you can see, I have adopted the fine-brush manner in my work. The ancient sense of beauty looks fresh to contemporary eyes. 1 Commenting on his unusual choice of technique, Shieh notes that what initially attracted him to fine-brush painting was the ‘extraordinarily strange but beautiful figural expressions’ of the characters in this genre. 2 The style enables him to be an astute yet subtle observer of the complexities of Hong Kong life. He remarks of his work: . . . [Y]ou might be curious about the characters in my paintings. Why do I depict figures in costumes imitating animals? Surely the animal series is not about animals. It is about the relations between men and women. It is about relations that confused me. The animal costumes are tricks that are played to resonate with the corresponding situations. They are also tricks that trap the characters in an atmosphere of absurdity. 3 In these paintings, the female partner is given a dominant role that is contrary to the animal’s natural habits: Shieh’s anthropomorphised beasts — with their designer eyeglasses and sleekly styled hairdos — emphasise a reversal of the balance of power generally ascribed to reproductive relationships in the animal kingdom. In Shieh’s works, men become their female partners’ beasts of burden. 4 Shieh’s paintings can also be interpreted in terms of the wider metaphor of the imbalance in the political relationship between Hong Kong and China. These paintings were produced in 1999; two years after Hong Kong ceased to be governed by Britain and once again became united with mainland China. Witty and delicately subversive, these paintings redefine gender roles and blur the boundaries between male and female, dominant and submissive, human and animal. They suggest a world in which gender stereotypes and relationships of power are not fixed and binding but fluid, unexpected and quickly reversible. endnotes 1 Wilson Shieh, artist statement in Beyond the Future: The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999, p.38. 2 Wilson Shieh, cited in Kathan Brown, ‘About the artist’, Crown Point Press, <http://www.crownpoint.com/ artists/201/about-artist>, viewed 24 January 2009. 3 Shieh, artist statement. 4 Bridget L Goodbody, ‘Wilson Shieh’, in Beyond the Future: The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, p.38. clockwise from top left Panda park 1999 Chinese ink and watercolour on silk / 40 x 30cm / Purchased 1999. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Bat corner 1999 Chinese ink and watercolour on silk / 40 x 30cm / Purchased 1999. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Sheep station 1999 Chinese ink and watercolour on silk / 40 x 30cm / Purchased 1999. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Koala place 1999 Chinese ink and watercolour on silk / 40 x 30cm / Purchased 1999. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation