Yiou Wang's Gallery
Lionfish.
In the Maldives.
The Religious Moment.
The Duke Chapel greets hundreds of people every Sunday. Religion exists in the simple, pleasurable moments that move them every now and then --the chimes from the bell tower, the singing of Chapel Choir, or a pastor walking by in the most serene manner. Even a non-religious person can experience religious moments on various occasions -- the small enlightenments from reading, watching a moon rise ... Divinity School brought to me the memory of an article that draws the line between sublimity and commonplace—whether or not people could fully comprehend. I decided to convey the feeling of holiness by reviving the defocused scene.
The Mythical Beasts on the Ancient Eave.
The mythical beasts, Jishou, on the glazed-tile eave have sat silently on guard for centuries, as a tradition of Chinese architecture. On top of a palace's eaves, you can find a large beast with a predator-like mouth and deer-like antlers, sitting on the top, called Chuishou, and a statue of a saint riding on a pheonix at the lowest end, known as Xianren Qifeng; the number of Jishou in the middle ranges from 1 to 9, varying according to the hierarchy of the building. Jishou are fictional beasts originated from ancient legends, each with a unique name, distinct personality and magical power. They were exquisitely and elegantly crafted as the protectors of the wooden structure below.
I encountered Jishou during my internship at the Forbidden City, where I was drawn to many things. I painted the eave beasts with their shadows soaring into the air to imply spirituality of the protectors who have walked out of legends and settled on the eave, the mythical creatures who have witnessed the ebb and flow of history. Not only Jishou, the ancient building is a space alive. The Forbidden City is a place full with spirituality.
The Girl Who Shushed.
This picture depicts the fear of a little orphaned girl during the Chechen War, who, after seeing her mother killed, made the shush gesture in order not to be discovered. No tears. No shows. No means of resistance. It is just the cruel reality where she needed silence to survive. What I wanted to represent was an epitome of the silent sufferings of minors under wars and terrorisms.
One Face.
A person's face may convey more than one emotion or thought. One night an idea occurred to me on how to visualize two simultaneous emotions the eyes reveal and conceal: weaving pieces of two paintings together. The two pictures were painted separately, and did a few tries on newspaper to decide what kind of pattern I would cut and weave.
Waking Up Neighbor - Series Cracking the Shell.
Cracking the Shell, consisting of twelve pictures, each tells a different story, but shares the same theme. I started the series of twelve works depicting the moment of birth of twleve different animals. This one is a chick accidentally landing his foot on another uncracked egg, a metaphor for the bringer of awakening.
Crocodile - Series Cracking the Shell.
Cracking the Shell, consisting of twelve pictures, each tells a different story, but shares the same theme. Since crocodile embryos don't carry sex chromosomes, the sex of the young is determined by the temperature instead of genetics. The female crocodiles, unlike most reptiles, gives parental care. In many situations one largely depends on one's birth environment, which is out of control. This hatchling is fortunate to be a croc.
Green Turtle - Series Cracking the Shell.
Cracking the Shell, consisting of twelve pictures, each tells a different story, but shares the same theme. Green turtles normally navigate to the sea at night by the sense of light. But this green turtle baby has lost his way to the sea due to urban light pollution. I feel that it is time for people to consider the environmental and ecological consequence of urbanization. We share this planet with other beings.
Abstract #01.
Shore of Lagøya.
Island Lagøya. Zodiacs. Rubber Boots. Glacier hikes. Polar bears and the polar bear scientist Rinie, fin whales and the midnight surprise observation, Brünnich's guillemots and the afternoon sitting on the cragged cliff watching birds. The memory of Spitsbergen in the Arctic remains vivid as yesterday. It is a place where cameras aren't as good as eyes, where the nature is both robust and delicate. The never-setting polar sun always lives in my heart.
Caricature of a Politician.
This is the one thing that artists and politicians have in common—they fabricate. But artists fabricate to reveal truth to the audience, while politicians fabricate, in contrast, to hide the truth for political ambitions. I know that artists fabricate, because I am a storyteller, balancing my imagination to reflect what I consider as reality. A politician's antlers grow longer and hotter the more he lies.
Urban Dream.
In one dream scene, there was a man standing by the large window, gazing outside in contemplation, and behind him, an elephant. The whole room's air slowly clotted under some thick pressure of thought. I was fascinated by such mysterious atmosphere, and I had my father pose as the model for this picture. Foregrounding the solid stillness, I let the curtain slightly tilted as if rustling in a breeze from outside.
Pals.
Parrots painetd using leftover colors on the palette.
Abstract #02. The Moment of Ecstasy.
From the Woods.
Le Marais Street Corner (Night). (Hollow watercolor)
Le Marais Street Corner (Day). (Hollow watercolor)
An Impression: Le Parc de Buttes-Chaumont.
Abstract #02: Waves.
How to seize the ephemeral waves, and how to portray the rhythm of water?
In the Dreaming Man's Dream, the Dreamed Man Awoke.
Once there was an old, foreign man, and he dreamed of a young man. He created this young man through his dreams, and was afraid that one day, his son would find out the secret that he was not real, but a mere projection of a dream. Just at that time, the old foreigner found, by accident, that he was also born through another person's dream. This tale by Jorge Borges inspired me on this work. The world is the perceived world, and human beings exist in ways that are relative to others. The old man who fathered the young man through dreams has the knowledge that he is not real; but who would know that, except the old man who conceived him and the Fire God? For the rest of the world, seven billion people, the young man is real and tangible with flesh and soul, comparable to themselves. The objective is the consensus of majority. The danger of Borges is the possibility that his tale isn't an allegory, but an unknown truth.
Mountain's Spirit.
Sheep and Clouds.
The white sheep looked like fallen clouds, and the white clouds, wandering sheep, on the train to south France. For a moment, the clouds appeared like ripples and wrinkles on a water surface, and the world seemed to be moving underwater.
