Nine Fish (Jiu-yu-tu) — composition 1

The title 九魚圖 (jiu-yu-tu, "Nine Fish picture") draws on a Chinese auspicious motif in which nine fish — the number nine homophonous with "long-lasting" (久) and the word for fish (魚) homophonous with "surplus" (餘) — together form a visual prayer for enduring abundance. Huang Chun-yuan's first composition in this pair translates that traditional ink-painting subject into screen print, a shift that allows him to handle scale, color saturation, and the patterning of scales or water through registered passes of the silkscreen rather than through brushwork. The medium's flat color planes and crisp edges read differently from a literati ink original, and Huang typically uses that contrast deliberately: an old subject is restated in a contemporary print language. Released through his Tsubaki Print Studio in Taipei, the work sits in the part of Huang's output where he engages directly with East Asian auspicious iconography — fish, bamboo, peaches — reissued as collectible editioned prints for the Taiwanese contemporary market.