In Yu Hong’s paintings, the very nature of time is at stake. Her artistic practice contrasts the weight of history against present banality, merging significant and ordinary time alongside grand narratives and personal memory. These dichotomies aptly coalesce in her colossal, nine-meter-wide triptych (2021), in which Yu centers the composition on a vessel which is about to capsize. The painting’s title and theme are borrowed from one of Hieronymus Bosch’s panels in an iconic triptych of the same name from the 1490s, wherein a group of ravenous adults don’t seem to notice the menace that awaits them while they carry on dining. In Yu’s depiction, however, a dozen adolescents cling to the angled bow and
