Known as the representative of Youth Cruelty artists, Yin Zhaoyang has deepened the creative concepts since 2011, taking up grand landscape as subject matter. Yin tries to tear down the barriers between Eastern and Western traditions, further creates a new diagram. He daubs pigments directly onto the canvas and mixes colors there rather than pre-mixing the colors on the palette. As such, the differently colored pigments are spread to and fro across the surface of the canvas with the artist's knife in streaks, smudges and swirls, not only forming an extruded relationship among the various colors but also piling up to bring forth a thick, richly variegated undulating texture of real heft.
His landscapes convey spirituality, which indicates that Chinese literati aesthetic can be vividly seen in the works. However, the techniques he employs are characterized by Western abstract and expressionistic qualities as artist Huang Jian points out: "His starting point for a direct dialogue with the spirit of this artistic heritage engaged through the use of an entirely new language."
Yin Zhaoyang once made a remark: "With the mountains in front of you, what you have seen or what has enlightened you doesn't matter, what matters is facing them." The creative process is parallel to hiking in the mountains. Both have to endure the ups and downs. In recent years, Yin has begun to ponder on the attitude toward artistic creation in a broader perspective. The title of current exhibition,Beyond Landscape, expresses the artist's self-exploration. It's not merely a landscape depiction; moreover, it projects artist's inner self.
Born in 1970, Yin Zhaoyang graduated from Printing Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is currently working and living in Beijing. Among the post-70s artists, Yin pioneered in the theme of youthful sadness and began to shape the self-image of his generation. Since 2007, Yin has developed his subject from figures, portraits to landscapes. In the Grand Landscapes series in 2011, Yin returned to the self by incorporating his Chinese cultural background, further established a new level of contemporary art.
About the exhibition
Duration: 6 - 28 Sep 2014
Venue: Lin & Lin Gallery. Taipei
Opening Hours: 10:00-19:00 (Tue - Sun)
Tel: 886-2-27006866
Add: 1F, No.16, Dongfeng St., Taipei, Taiwan
Courtesyof the artist and Lin & Lin Gallery.