Wu Chi-Tsung’s video works focus on issues of imagery and spectatorship. Recently Wu used Eastern ink painting to explore how traditional culture relates to contemporary times, in addition to touching upon themes of foreignness. Landscape in the Mist 001 was produced specifically for this exhibition. It combines the style of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s nineteenth-century painting Souvenir of Mortefontaine with images embodying the charm of Chinese landscape painting. Wu uses image processing techniques to abstractly reproduce the ambiguous situation which occurs when foreign and local cultures collide. Wu has said: “To my mind, the Souvenir of Mortefontaine … is very similar to Chinese landscapes, but I can’t explain why. Perhaps they share a common spirit. Perhaps the undisputed differences or boundaries between different cultures are not so undisputed after all”. About his work Still Life 004 Bamboo Wu explains: “The inspiration came from the memory of painting. During the process I felt guilty for creating something so beautiful, and that selling Eastern beauty would be a corruption…at first we avoided drawing inspiration from our roots because we aspired to be Western. Now, when we choose to look at our magnificent Oriental culture it is still lovely and moving, but its splendor has become alien and exotic”. The artist’s poetic-artistic language emphasizes the role of recollection in the process of creation – that of one’s roots and personal experiences as well as those of traditional or dominant culture. The artist exploits the exoticism of Eastern ink paintings, which appeal to people all around the world, thus cultivating a cross-cultural aesthetic experience.

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