Shuai Yang
Bio: Shuai Yang (b.1998 Beijing, China) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with printmaking, photography, painting, and installation. Yang is a current MFA Visual Arts candidate at Columbia University School of The Arts, New York. She received a BFA in printmaking from Massachusetts College of Art. Her work has been shown in Beijing, Boston, and New York.
www.shuaiyangstudio.com
Instagram: @shuai.yang.studio
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: With the motivation rooted in the childhood experience of losing my father dying from a disease, and being raised solely by my mother, I am enthusiastic about investigating the subjects of death, the cycle of life, the individual, and the collective human body.
My practices dissect and react to the loss and yearning, transcend personal vulnerabilities, and consequently unfold the exploration of universal emotions related to identity and kinship. The loss prompts me to use processes and materials that embody repetition, multiplicity, liminality, and transformation, simultaneously responding to the ever-changing poetic space and time where we locate our bodily existence.
The adaptation of folk art and intercultural mythologies is where I feel most relaxed about expressing and realizing my life energy. They inspire content, material, and processes. Specifically, I employ cutting, burning, incising, stitching, (un) folding, layering, and collage in the physical procedures.
I embrace playfulness as both an artistic strategy and a visual manifestation. Playfulness, when confronting trauma and the fear of death, is an agent to arrive at a mind of acceptance and persistence toward the inescapable limitation of life. Play in the studio, my body and mind knowledge transform the cognitive knowledge into a sensible entity. This urgency to transform appears as a one-person performance coming out from my élan vital. Particular but not always predictable visual languages emerge from the concurrence of the bodily energy and the space of imagination, fabricating a distinct realm that evokes story-telling.
L to R: To the Sky, From the Sky (22.75" x 18", Screenprint, and reflective polyester on paper, 2023); BbOoDdYy (I), (102" x 38", Assorted paper, plastic, china marker, intaglio ink, and dye on paper with burned holes attached to wood stick, 2023); BbOoDdYy (III), (122" x 38", Assorted paper, reflective polyester, intaglio ink, acrylic paint, and stain on paper with burned holes attached to wood stick, 2023); BbOoDdYy (II), (120" x 38", Assorted paper, reflective polyester, acrylic paint, and stain on paper with burned holes attached to wood stick, 2023); Red Dolls (I), (7" x 6", Calligraphy paper, and ganpishi on stretched canvas, 2023); Red Dolls (II), (7" x 6", Calligraphy paper, and ganpishi on stretched canvas, 2023); Red Dolls (IV), (60" x 36", Calligraphy paper, ganpishi, and reflective polyester on stretched canvas, 2023); Body and Sky (Intaglio, paper, and reflective polyester, 2023); Paper Dolls (66" x 48", Tissue paper, xuan paper, calligraphy paper, brown paper, black paper, and reflective polyester on stretched cotton, 2023); Cosmos (30" x 20", Gouache, graphite, markers, and screenprint on paper, 2023); Mirror, Mirror (Reflective polyester, branches, clay, and rock, 2023)
First Year Exhibition
L to R: Try To Feel His Anger (detail), (14” x 11" x 3", Poetry: wood, printed cards, 2021); Video (color, sound), (60" X 84", Floor sculpture: Clay, ashtray, incense, carpet, 21: 56min)
