"Gu Du"

Graphite on tea-stained paper 

Artist Bio:

I was born and raised in Guangxi, China. A lot of ethnic minorities live in Guangxi province. My ethnic group – “Zhuang” is one of them. As Zhuang, we admire nature and our ancestors. We perform rituals to worship them annually. In some of the rituals, magic and witchcraft are often involved.

Art Statement:

In my Zhuang culture, there are always tales about Gu Du. Gu is a venom-based poison associated with the cultures of southern China (where I was from). It is used in black magic practices such as manipulating people, creating diseases, and causing death. There are many kinds of ways to create Gu. In this drawing, I depicted the preparation of Alive Snake Gu. To acquire this kind of Gu, involved sealing hundreds of poisonous snakes in an urn, where they devoured one another and concentrated their toxin into a single survivor. The venom from the survivor will be extracted and used in the magical practice.