Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Xijia (Romee) Lai

Noah’s Vineyard

When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. (Genesis 9:21 NIV)

“Noah’s VineyardThis work draws from the account in Genesis 9, where Noah, לאחר the flood, cultivates a vineyard and becomes overcome by the fruit of his own labor. The scene is not approached as a distant narrative, but as a recurring human condition—one in which abundance, vulnerability, and loss of awareness coexist.The vineyard is rendered in saturated blue tones, filled with dense clusters of fruit that suggest both richness and excess. Within this environment, a reclining nude figure is partially covered by a cloth. The body is exposed, yet not entirely abandoned—held in a tension between shame and covering.While the imagery references Noah, the figure is intentionally feminized, functioning as a self-representational presence. It reflects a personal experience of becoming absorbed in what is beautiful, fruitful, and seemingly good, to the point of losing orientation. What begins as cultivation gradually shifts into indulgence; what appears as abundance becomes a site of disconnection.The state of nakedness in this work is not merely physical, but perceptual—a condition of unawareness. The figure does not fully recognize its own exposure. This lack of recognition intensifies the sense of vulnerability, suggesting that estrangement is not always accompanied by clarity.The cloth introduces another dimension: covering not as concealment alone, but as an act that gestures toward grace. It does not erase what has occurred, but interrupts total exposure. In this, the work holds together two movements—the descent into self-forgetting, and the possibility of being covered.Through this painting, I reflect on the fragility of human perception: how easily one can become immersed in what one has been given, and how difficult it is to discern the moment when participation turns into surrender. The vineyard remains a place of beauty, but also of risk—a space where excess, shame, and grace converge.”