"Yu Hong: Concurrent Realms" curated by Zhang Qing at the Suzhou Museum is an exhibition of Yu Hong's latest paintings, including Ever Higher, Ever Further, Earth and Heaven, and Splendor of Sun and Moon amongst fifteen other new works. The exhibition opens to the public on April 25, 2015 and will continue until July 12.
Zhang Qing, curator of the exhibition, pointed out in the article Concurrent Realms, "These parallel worlds are what make us stand in awe under the night sky looking up at the heavens and the unfathomably vast expanse of the universe beyond our sight. What is even more valuable is how such realizations ignite the creation of art, which in its scope attempts to express exterior reality as well as one's innermost emotions. Art and life – two important domains of our world – when placed within the constructs of a parallel realm in an attempt at understanding, mutually permeate and influence each other, thereby shifting our comprehension of them. This simultaneously creates an even stronger force that stimulates the imaginative and experiential power of those who come into contact with it. When the heart responds to overlapping parallel layers of art and life, when that moment is fixed and seized by us, then the nodes of connection in the burst of artistry allow us to experience whether or not art can truly be a vessel in which one can speak of the human soul. At the same time, it makes us wonder whether art can be used as a means to create new worlds, making us treasure its transience even more. We should however, never forget that art as a penetrating yet beneficent language, is also a moment of fragility, which when we attempt to reach out and grasp in our hands, disappears. "
On the eve of the exhibition, Yu Hong describes the new pieces for her exhibition coming from a personal level. Through the artist's own understanding of her works, we the audience come to understand that all of the worlds created on the canvas are inspired by scenes of daily life, as well as her observations and experiences of social realities. "People say that the world has many different dimensions to it," says Yu Hong, "but to me, I feel that each of these dimensions and each of these views are all only representative of various means of understanding the world. These ways of understanding can be parallel to reality, but can also be defined by mutual intertwining. The works that I created, if not coming from a physical reckoning of the world more likely arose through a process of capturing the psychological layers of existence. For example, in our daily lives we receive an immense amount information, whether it is the most recent developments from the conflict in the Middle East, the latest findings from the Antarctic Research Stations, etc. All of this news reaches us through media channels, inadvertently influencing our thought processes and modes of action, creating changes on a psychological level whilst exposing different layers of existence."
Yu Hong sensitively captures the exceptionalism of the human form and psychological world, reminding us of what Foucault spoke of in Madness and Civilization, that "the entire female body is riddled by obscure but strangely direct paths of sympathy; it is always in an immediate complicity with itself, to the point of forming a kind of absolutely privileged site for the sympathies". As Yu Hong would put it, female identity is an implicit element, compelling her as an artist to discover and express her experiences: "I very much wish to understand other people, but each one of us contains a world, one can even say a universe inside ourselves, each one with different levels and wavelengths. Sometimes, changes in the exterior as well as inner worlds are not automatically registered by us and understanding ourselves is like trying to understand a world. We think we know the world of our day-to-day lives so well, when in fact so much is unknown to us and we only need change our point of view to realize how unfamiliar the world truly is."
In Earth and Heaven (2014) shown in this exhibition, Yu Hong depicts figures against a backdrop of an explosion, all with different facial expressions and features. As Yu Hong sees it "every day we are faced with a flood of all sorts of dangers. Even though some of these dangers might be magnificent, or even beautiful things, they still remain objects of peril and uncertainty. None of us knows what this world will be like in the future or how it will change." Ever Higher, Ever Further (2015) on the other hand, creates a world in which reality and the surreal run parallel to each other. It is a triptych in which each separate painting depicts figures in different poses on the same telephone wire pole, the three paintings joined together vertically to create a single work. Yu Hong has said, "my paintings are very realistic in their representation, but essentially I wish to express surrealist structures and situations. Moments of surrealism like this happen everyday, I would go as far to say that this world is a surreal one, and that each and every one of us in this world has moments of helplessness."
About the exhibition
Curator: Zhang Qing
Organized by Suzhou Museum
Supported by Long March Space
Dates: April 25, 2015 – July 12, 2015
Location: Contemporary Art Galleries, Suzhou Museum
Courtesy of the artist and Suzhou Museum, for further information please visit www.szmuseum.com.
