Installation view of ‘Yu Hong: Night Walk’, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, USA
In Night Walk, preeminent painter Yu Hong weaves together her personal experiences and memories with significant collective shifts in contemporary China, portraying epochal transformation within sprawling compositions. In six large-scale, richly detailed paintings and three small studies of hands, Yu Hong evokes classical art historical motifs drawn from the Italian Renaissance, particularly Michelangelo’s contorted forms, as well as traditional Chinese painting tropes from the culture’s many-centuries-long heritage. The artist’s psychologically rich subjects exist within a riotous tumult of dramatic, otherworldly scenes, establishing a nuanced dialogue between the individual figure and a surreal setting. The disquieting nature of her groupings evoke human fragility and the ever-present social tensions between isolation and togetherness. Yet they also speak to an insistent resilience and the eternal hope that can be found in a landscape of the imagination.
“Night Walk” 夜行
Acrylic on canvas
300 x 750 cm
2023
“The Old Man and the Sea” 老人与海
Acrylic on canvas
250.8 x 299.7 x 5.1 cm
2023
“Make a Wish” 欲海沉浮
Acrylic on canvas
340 x 140 cm
2023
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