Group Show

‘A female body in luminous off-white–asleep? daydreaming? buried?–has her eyes closed. Where on Earth are we? Is this a scene of death, a rumination on the ways that the cyclical forces of nature reconvene as we perish? Or a painting that asks us to think about the passing of seasons, even or especially as extreme climate conditions disrupt its rhythm? In either case, life and death are held at once.’ 

Matthew Holman

Yuan Fang’s new painting of fireworks is inspired by the artist’s intimate relationships and heartbreaks felt as a woman, recounting ideas of body, passivity and vulnerability. In the reigning and alluring abstract image within the painting, the source of the energy is at the centre, creating a sense of explosive intensity like fireworks. In the artist’s personal relationships, her sexual and intimate experiences are as ephemeral and pulsating as fireworks in the night sky, at any moment seeming to freeze then fall with time, and finally dissipating into the abyss.

This painting depicts a kid playing basketball on a military base. The opponents are transparent, imagined defenders taking the place of friends whose parents had been stationed elsewhere. In this painting I was thinking about losing people at a young age, constant relocation, and the rapid turnover of families on military installations. The title cites a Lil Wayne song from The Carter.

Mikey Yates