Yesterday, I worked in the Brisbane CBD. After work, I walked into a store for art supplies. Unexpectedly, I found a few rolls of rice paper, which are typically used for traditional Chinese painting. I bought one and couldn't help but paint a picture on a piece of paper cut from it when I arrived home.
This was my first time engaging in traditional Chinese ink and wash painting since I gave it up twenty-eight years ago. Long, long ago, Chinese expression painting was my favorite form of fine art, and Qi Baishi was my most admired painter. In my childhood, I often followed his style to paint prawns, frogs, flowers, and fish. This time, when trying it again after twenty-eight years, I chose to paint a prawn. In only a few minutes, I had painted a big prawn on the paper.
I presented the picture to my wife and parents. They could understand what I was painting at a glance and said it was not bad for a first attempt in a long time.
I uploaded the picture online. When a French friend saw it, he left a message saying that it looked like a prawn that had been fed with contraceptive medicine. It is a known issue in agriculture that some people in certain areas of the world use contraceptive medicine to feed prawns, causing much concern over food security.
I checked my painting again and quite agreed with him that the body of the prawn was a bit too fat. There are many reasons for a prawn to grow fat. Not only those raised by farmers but also some from the wild are fat or have a similar appearance. Any of these interpretations is rational.
There is often a recreation process when admiring an artwork. Everyone has their own life experiences and perspectives, which are also always different from the creator's, no matter how similar they may be.
An excellent artwork should allow viewers to understand the most direct information shared with everyone, while also allowing each person to have a unique interpretation at a deeper layer.
This is the charm of any form of art.
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