The Thousand-year-old Shapeshifting Herring

One of Wu Jian’an’s core methodologies for his artistic creations is to find a connection between the individual spiritual world and current social problems from the local cultural traditions. Subsequently, the artist converts the connection into unique, vibrant visual art works with rich connotations through experimental use of numerous artistic materials and languages.

“Tale of the Green Herring” is the culmination of Wu’s study on several different literary versions of “The Legend of the White Snake”. It is a collage that consists of seven large frames of color waxed paper cuts with a connected plot line that constitutes a prequel of the famed story. It is an attempt at the re-creation of a classic tale by injecting current cultural imagination.

The first frame is entitled “The Thousand-year-old Shapeshifting Herring". It depicts the transformation of a green herring. If you look into details, you will see an immortal sitting in the big fish’s mouth, suggesting that it is cultivated according to Taoist methods.