Gordon Cheung UK, b. 1975

In this painting, the background landscape references a distorted Chinese Imperial scroll depicting the Forty Views of Yuanmingyuan (Beijing’s Old Summer Palace), much of which was looted and dispersed into European collections and now survives as one of the last visual records of the so-called “Garden of Gardens.” The destruction of Yuanmingyuan during the Anglo-French Second Opium War—when thousands of troops burned and pillaged an area comparable in scale to Manhattan’s Central Park—forms a historical backdrop to the work. In the foreground, one of contemporary China’s leading GDP cities emerges in sharp contrast, positioned beneath history’s lingering presence, which hovers like an aurora across the composition.
Auroras and mountains function symbolically as thresholds between earth and heaven, linking temporal and metaphysical realms. The still life elements draw upon the traditions of Dutch Golden Age painting, a genre that often reflected on the fragility of life and the futility of material excess. This period also marked the emergence of modern capitalism, including the speculative tulip market collapse widely regarded as one of the first recorded financial crashes. Simultaneously, Dutch imperial wealth expanded through global trade networks shaped by colonization, slavery, and militarized commerce.
The tulip carries layered cultural symbolism: in Turkey it signified divine presence, while in the Netherlands it became an emblem of status and the fleeting nature of beauty. References to stock listings throughout the composition evoke the financial systems structuring contemporary global life. Collectively, the painting presents a contemplative space that considers humanity’s pursuit of knowledge—economic, scientific, and technological—alongside the enduring costs of progress, including environmental degradation, alienation, and inequality.