In Success (2015), the artist depicts two porters carrying heavy bags up mountainous terrains. Porters hold cargoes in exchange for a small payment. Nina Pryde conveys their exacerbating hardship and...
In Success (2015), the artist depicts two porters carrying heavy bags up mountainous terrains. Porters hold cargoes in exchange for a small payment. Nina Pryde conveys their exacerbating hardship and physical labour. Porters are a foreign concept in today’s society because not many people live in such isolated terrains. This can be traced back to the Meiji years which saw a domestic migration from farms to cities. The government’s pro-industry policies created factories and employment opportunities in the urban setting. Additionally, towards the early 20th century, a national depression effected Japan’s rural regions, causing many villagers to lose their land, prompting them to move to the cities. While city dwellers are often characterized as apathetic, people living in the coun-tryside are viewed as more vibrant and warm. On one hand, the artist’s subject matter is anthropologically driven. On the other, she sheds light on the admirable qualities of porters, including positivity, endurance and hopefulness.The subject matter recalls Tao Yuan-Ming’s poems from the Jin Dynasty, which described the writer’s reclusion in nature. Despite appreciating the simplicity and bucolic aspects of nature, the poet also expressed how life in the countryside was full of poverty and hardships. These poems, like Success (2015) evoke a sense of pathos and poignancy from the viewer.
In terms of the artist’s techniques, in order to emphasise the difficulty of the journey, the artist uses negative spacing or “liu bai” in the central composition to create a slanted shape. This conveys the steepness of the high-raising mountains. There is also uses chia-roscuro and tonal modelling to heighten the dark and light areas of the mountain ridges. Additionally, the artist photographs the figures from behind. By deliberately misaligning gazes, and consigning each figure to the deep reccesses of its own inwardness, she preserves the porters’ dignity.