In an early work by gu wenda, surrealist landscape #3, the indiscernible forms and disordered lines are reminiscent of works by Wassily Kandinsky, while certain combinations of forms and lines resemble characters in the ancient seal script of Chinese calligraphy. They are, however, detached, synthesized, misplaced, overlapped, miswritten, negated, and inverted. The character-like forms challenge and inhibit the viewer’s attempt to ascribe meaning. The notion of “unreadability” here paved the way for the artist’s fully developed creation of pseudo-characters.

© gu wenda, photo: Maurice Aeschimann, Geneva