Buffaloes demonstrates Shui’s confident grasp of anatomical detail in rendering animal forms in the round. Likely carved from a single piece of wood, a herd of buffalo are depicted in motion, interspersed by their minders who stride among them. The musculature and contour of each buffalo has been carefully articulated and finished in his carving. While the work is one among many by Shui that represented animals including horses, pigeons and fish, it is exceptional for its handling of negative space to create a vivid sense of movement and density of the herd. Although buffaloes have appeared in Shui’s sculpture as early as 1972, the scale of this work is matched by a few others by Shui, including One Hundred Fish Composition (1975) and One Hundred Pigeons (1972).
