Mer de Corail

2025-ongoing

Mer de Corail, 2025-ongoing, ink drawings grouped in sets of four and fifteen, are made from memory of marine life through Zheng Bo's daily swim in the coral lagoon of New Caledonia-Kanaky. With an awareness of Chinese painting tradition and calligraphy, in which the living body, and its bone, flesh, tendon, and blood, are evoked in the quality of the brushstrokes, Zheng Bo consciously moves towards a personal technique by drawing with wooden sticks and vines collected from walks. Imbued with sensuous swiftness and animated lightness, the depictions of unicornfish, toby, shrimpgoby, Moorish idol, boxfish, sweetlip, porcupinefish, trevally, juvenile emperor angelfish, sea turtle, New Caledonian sea krait, Blacktip reef shark, and various types of corals, reflect a community where, as proclaimed by a black saddled toby (Canthigaster valentini) in The Political Life of a Coral Lagoon, “each fulfils its place in the interwoven lattice of life.”

(Text by Jo-ey Tang)