3205 | GAO YU Painted in 2008 FROM TIDE RIDER TO DROWNER

FROM TIDE RIDER TO DROWNER

Author: GAO YU 高瑀

Size: 210×210cm

Signed and dated: Painted in 2008

Estimate:

Final Price: RMB 780,000

LITERATURE
2010 Ten Cases Studies of Post-70s Art / P087 / China Ecnomic Publish House

Among Gao Yu’s early works, "Panda GG" is undoubtedly the most recognizable creative image. He designed a series of growth process for this panda, and put it in various dreamlike scenes and adventures. For Gao Yu, "This little panda is just an actor, and I am the screenwriter and director."
"From Tide Rider to Drowner" and "PAN&DADA" are two acts in Gao Yun’s "Panda Universe". The two acts, which are rich and colorful and present Gao Yu’s own intepretation of pandas, caricature the social reality in a playful and humorous way in cartoon style. Pandas are animals that are loved all over the world. Their cuteness and docility have almost characterize them. However, Gao Yu broke with the convention and created a irritable panda GG, showing its consistent rebellious character. In the center of the colored concentric circles in "From Tide Rider to Drowner" is a drowning panda GG calling for help. The concentric circles symbolize the eye of the storm or the center of the vortex: in a blink of an eye, the tide rider becomes a drowning guy. Disguised as a blessing or a curse, heaven and hell can change in an instant. In his subsequent creations, Gao Yu developed a new image on top of the image of panda GG, which differentiated into two elements of Peter Pan and Dada from the English spelling of panda. As shown in "PAN&DADA", the artist continues the color matching full of dynamic and visual tension and at the same time exudes a free atmosphere like street graffiti that speak to the cool and fearless life attitude of the new generation of youth.