Chen Xiaoyun’s Fruit of Wasteland takes inspiration from the poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. In this painting, octopus plays the role of a wise man, who is staring at a Greek god and a goddess chasing each other across the vast field. On the right hand side there is a black peacock perching on tree branches as the opposite of octopus - they can be considered as good and evil, sense and sensibility, past and future, or anything within the binary opposition structure.  It is worth noting that all the branches here are characterized by traditional Chinese painting technique, which contrast sharply with the wasteland background marked by expressionism.

Detail pictures: