100%

61 × 122 cm

“A crumpled paper bag holding daffodils, a pear, and a pistol.”

A crumpled grocery bag, and inside it daffodils, a pear, and a pistol. Given the cold, heavy texture of jade, the pear stops being soft — it takes on memory and weight. It also carries a message only one language hears: in Chinese, pear — 梨 — sounds exactly like separation, 離. One viewer sees fruit; another hears goodbye.

In that gap lives the whole experience of diaspora — the pear as the labouring body, the female body, the body of an island, carrying its silent farewell wherever it travels. The pistol, painted in translucent crystal powder, is almost not there: an outline caught between visible and invisible, resting among the flowers. Overhead, engraved like a label: 100%. A guarantee — funny, until you notice what sits beside it. Next to a pistol, certainty stops being reassuring. Look again, and an ordinary bag becomes everything left unsaid about leaving.