Yirui Jia

COMA is pleased to present a solo exhibition, titled ‘Inviting Me To Me’, by New York-based artist Yirui Jia (b. 1997, China), on view 13 January – 18 February, 2023. This is the artist’s first solo presentation with COMA.

In Inviting Me To Me, bold hues, wicked brushstrokes and distorted imagery create a fantastical world where fragmented narratives are dominated by a protagonist that flits and weaves between realms – a Tarantino-esque bride that rules a cacophonic multiverse.

This character, with locks of flaming orange hair and an eye-patch alluding to some sort of violent history, constantly redefines herself as she assumes a horde of differing social identities. Swimmer, astronaut, mermaid, athlete – the list goes on. Each persona brought to life is empowered by a layered complexity that builds upon an ever expanding narrative, a narrative that knits together fantastical ambition, whimsy, and unrivalled comedic wit. 

We see the bride as she lounges in a bikini on a park bench under the radiation of a hair perming machine, delicately resting coconut shells on her clawed feet. She distorts herself into a spider-like figure, furiously pulling out the intestines of a stuffed astronaut, a wildly misbehaved and contradictory construct of the female stereotype. Straddling representations of ideal goodness and mischievousness, the bride is in parts grotesque, violent and messy, and this reflects Yirui Jia’s appetite for spectacle and the unspeakable. The honest depiction of a woman in control of her own universe, revelling in the chaos and willingly swept up in a maelstrom.

Located within her infernal scapes are hallmarks of everyday life, a snickers bar, lightbulbs, bubble gum, cupping therapy and a Nike sock – banal objects grounding the viewer in the reality of their own existence, and, by extension locating them inside the ferocity and uncanny of Yirui Jia’s extraordinary world.

I see a painting as a play or theatre, and the figures being actors. Now I’m thinking not only about the narrative but the whole painting as a character itself. So it’s almost like each painting has its own personality- I’m pushing towards seeing the painting as a whole. Recently, l’ve tried starting as an abstract painting and then using that abstract-ness to search for clues on how to build a play from it.

– Yirui Jia

Introducing an expansion of the dimensions of the physical frame, Inviting Me To Me collages canvases of different sizes together, a tool used by the artist  to recontextualise the world through a fracturing and distorting of time and space.

Inviting Me To Me allows for acts of introspection and moments of self reflection that encourage the viewer to embrace their own inherent freedom. Through the channels that connect Yirui Jia’s varying worlds we see limitless potential in a frenetic dreamscape that conjures puerile feelings that feed our insatiable appetite for life as both a superficial and authentic experience.