Tancho - Reconstructing Goldfish through Digital Abstraction

# Tancho - Reconstructing Goldfish through Digital Abstraction

Artist Statement

This work began with a single photograph of a Tancho goldfish.

Tancho is a goldfish breed that originated in Japan in the early 19th century. Its appearance—a pure white body with vivid red only on the crown of its head—was named after the red-crowned crane, a bird beloved as a symbol of good fortune. However, this beauty is no accident. The history of goldfish, which began with wild crucian carp, is itself a testament to humanity's centuries-long pursuit of beauty through selective breeding. Tancho, too, is a life created by human hands through countless generations.

I abstracted this Tancho. What remains on the canvas is a violent collision of red and blue hues, and transparent fragments scattering like shattered glass. Though the original form is lost, its crimson, its white, the traces of its swimming motion—all are unmistakably inscribed here.

Reconstructing a life created by human hands with technology created by human hands. In this act coexist both the joy of creation and hesitation about intervention. Beauty and ethics, nature and artifice—carrying these unanswerable questions, I sought through this work to preserve a testament to the existence called Tancho.

About the Work

Medium: Digital Art (Abstraction)

Year: 2026

Materials: Digitally abstracted from a photograph of Tancho goldfish

History of Goldfish and Selective Breeding

Tancho goldfish is a crystallization of centuries of selective breeding by humans. Starting from wild crucian carp, through mutation and artificial selection, it has evolved into today's beautiful ornamental fish.