Juo You-ruei was born in Nan-zhou, Pingtong in 1950. In 1969, Juo entered the Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan University. In 1975, Juo’s enormous “Banana” series caused many responses and discussions and made her known to the public. The next year Juo came to State University of New York at Albany to study. After receiving her master degree, Juo started her career in New York City. Taking photography and slide projection as her supporting tools to work on detailed realistic painting has been the major creative method for Juo Yu-ruei. Juo did not release her successive artwork series “Shadow” series until 1986. The themes of the series were fantasized light and shadows as well as the paths of time. Juo’s focus shifted to “walls” in the 1990s. The short depth of field and the intensive and realistic textures of the walls had allowed some kind of visual abstraction in her artwork. In 2005, Juo received a teaching position from Hong Kong Baptist University, and afterwards Hong Kong’s landscapes were included and displayed through her works of art.

In 1975, when “Banana” series was first exhibited in American Culture Center, Juo represented the life stages of bananas—the germination, the early fresh green, yellowish ripeness, and the rottenness of this “fruit hero,” which earned Taiwan a great amount of foreign currency in the 1970s, on epic scale canvases. Viewers were forced to gaze on the brief irreversible circle of life—from its origin to its termination through Juo’s work. Banana Series: 7 presents the latter stage of the life circle of a banana. One would find it thrilling when seeing the laceration and desolation of the torn banana. Though a mere banana, it caught one’s eyes with its thrills. It could be said that the artist found her interpretation toward the existence and vulnerability of life, the peeling-off, nibbling, and the breaking of the banana as shown in Banana Series: 7 could be regarded as symbols. These could be symbols of some kind of accident, pain, or even something savage. Especially, through such précised, fully detailed illustrations, its clearness and coldness is definitely not exaggerated, nevertheless, it is also straight, sharp and merciless.

Back in the late 1960s, Photographic Realism began to develop in the United States. Projecting the photographic image on the canvas, the artist thus attained précised figures, outlines and color elements of a photograph. Through the illustration booklet she got from Hong Kong, Juo had a chance to get to understand examples of American Photographic Realism. After she graduated from college, Juo began to create her artwork with supports of slide projections and completed her “Banana” series. In the early 1970s, Taiwanese art scene had little knowledge about Photographic Realism. With numerous works Juo Yu-ruei represented with Photographic Realism in her exhibition, she became the pioneer of Taiwan’s Photographic Realism in the 1970s. To the artist’s surprise, the association of the look of the banana to the genital organ was criticized by the conservatives; moreover, the work was regarded as the pioneer Taiwanese feminist artwork in the 1990s.