Yu Yang is adept at using the characteristics of water, ink and paper to create a unique visual experience. For him, the combination of these three materials forms the main external representation of Chinese traditional painting and calligraphy, but nowadays, the goal of ink painting is not to write or paint, but to liberate people from the cultural burden of ink painting, to release the cultural attributes of a particular material, and to close up the distance between past and present to create more possibilities.
The works of the exhibition are Yu Yang’s latest, dating from 2018. The whole space showcases the medium in which he excels, to create a state that can be summarized as ‘Opposites Attract’. Wood is the substance, widely used, malleable, and close to men, it is a kind of spatial material. Ink painting embodies the cultural and spiritual world, while wood is more entrenched in reality: the combination of these two is in fact a dialogue between spirit and reality.
As Yu Yang says ‘Actually, the spiritual and the real world have always been interrelated’. When spirituality and reality are artificially combined, it appears that the traditional world of the mind is no longer the content delivered by a traditional visual experience, but is controlled by the visual effect of real objects, namely wood, and extending to space. Wood is separated from its attributes after being attached to an intellectual value, and becomes an object with cultural connotations; water, ink and paper, which are traditional objects of culture, have become materialized physical beings, operating a transformation and forming a new visual experience. They are released. Hence the name ‘Opposites Attract.’
Yu Yang, born in Ulanbator, Inner Mongolia in 1979, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master degree in 2013. He is a member of the ‘Cold Ink’ art group, and now lives and works in Beijing. His work has already been largely exhibited including at National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China), The Long Museum (Shanghai, China), Minsheng Art Museum (Beijing, China), +BTAP TOKYO Gallery (Beijing, China), Parkview Green Art (Beijing, China), 3812 Gallery (Hong Kong, China), etc.