Sun Pei-Mao
TAIPEI
Broken railings, disconnected stairways, mismatched tiles—these subtle details lure viewers into Sun Pei-Mao’s There is No Sign for the Direction of the Park (2018). The Escherian fourpart painting resembles a thermographic, foldable travel map of a distorted garden. Amorphous teal splatters bleed onto gridded floors, green bushes are ablaze, and lost visitors stand under the claw of a banyan tree, between its crawling roots. This trippy scene is distinctive of Sun’s early works, where theatrical tension suspends viewers in an absurd reality.
Sun’s creations, once defined by psychedelic hues, have since become darker—both in color and content. Inspired by Taiwanese American contemporary artist (2021) is a pencil-sketched nightmare. Ten grotesque figures sprawl across a colossal fish corpse, feasting on its meat. The starving souls’ exaggerated muscle lines and bulging eyes are defined by soft pencil markings—a juxtaposition of gruesome subject and delicate medium. “[Studying Pan’s work] made me reflect: the many rules I’ve set for myself are actually traps,” Sun said. “I’m trying to break my own rules and use my own way to depict chaotic fights to see how chaotic they can be.”
