Yu Peng

Edinburgh, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Reckoning with the Past, 1996, illustrated

Yu Peng has been active in Taiwan’s art scene since the late 1970s.  Inspired by China’s traditional scholar culture, Yu has developed a complete life style that includes building his private garden, creating music and a puppet theater, and setting up a teahouse.  Yu’s project is the re-creation of the scholar’s life in the modern urban world.  His paintings are therefore the literati musings of a modern urbanite.  This painting was created for one of the first international exhibitions that brought together artists from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong; inaugurated at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery during the Edinburgh Festival in 1996, Reckoning With the Past also toured to venues in Scotland, Portugal and New Zealand.