LIAO Yu Ying
Late night Bite
Ink on paper
40*79 cm
2025
Branches interlace like flashes of lightning, forming an uncanny spatial web. A dark shape creeping across the grass late at night—seen from afar, it resembles a large rat. Partially concealed by layers of tree shadows, it hurries past with its late-night prey clenched in its mouth, its eyes still fixed forward in a state of alert vigilance.
I depict the moment of encountering a black cat in the midst of hunting from an overhead perspective. The branches occupy the extreme foreground, looping backward into space, while the true protagonist does not emerge until the farthest depth of the scene. The viewer’s gaze follows the branches and the grass rendered in fine ink lines, gradually converging toward the center, where the image of a “large rat” slowly resolves into that of a black cat.
The reduced scale of the figure compels the viewer to lean in, bringing the body closer to the work. Beneath the delicate and gentle atmosphere created by the ink lines, one is confronted with the brutal instant of the primal food chain. The refined elegance associated with classical aesthetics is set against this reality, producing a psychological impact as difficult to ignore as the moment of locking eyes with the animal itself.