M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. By donation, © Yan Lei. Photo: M+, Hong Kong
NARRATOR:
Artist Yan Lei created eleven animal-themed paintings in acrylic on canvas between 2002 and 2003. As indicated from their titles, the paintings depict the eleven out of twelve Chinese zodiac animals that can be found in real life. In the exhibition M+ Sigg Collection: Another Story, which opened in 2023, six paintings from the series—Rabbit, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, and Rooster—are on display during the first part of the exhibition period. Monkey will then be replaced by another work in the series, Mouse, during the second part of the exhibition period starting at around the 2024 Chinese New Year holiday in February. Among these paintings, Rabbit is the tallest, measuring 196 centimetres high, 138 centimetres long, and two centimetres thick. Snake, on the other hand, is the narrowest, measuring 66 centimetres high, 138 centimetres long, and two centimetres thick. The rest of the paintings are similarly sized squares that measure approximately 138 centimetres high, 140 centimetres wide, and two centimetres thick.
Each of these eleven paintings is a lifelike depiction of a specific animal. It presents the form of the animal in a realistic way, rendering the details of its skin, fur, features, and expressions. But when you view the painting up close, you may not be able to recognise the details at all. The artist uses patches of paint in black, white, and different hues of grey to create the animal portraits. Chunks of colours interlock and create gradual transitions between lighter and darker tones, resulting in a combination of gradient colours that constitute the animal and its surroundings when one looks at it from afar.
The following are detailed descriptions of two of the paintings.
Rabbit depicts a long-eared rabbit so big that it nearly dominates the entire picture. Facing the viewer, the rabbit appears to squat on a flat area with all of its feet touching the ground. Its ears, even bigger than its face, are both erect. Against a greyish-white background, one side of the rabbit’s body shines under the sun, sharply contrasting with the other side in shadow.
The other painting, Snake, depicts a coiled snake with a thick, striped body. The stripes are represented by alternating blobs of black and light grey, in which the black is wider than the light grey. The snake’s head extends horizontally to the right, while its body forms the shape of the Arabic numeral ‘8’, occupying the centre and the left of the canvas.