落红不是无情物，化作春泥更护花。
The fallen flowers are not heartless things; turned into spring soil would better nourish the blooms.
——Gong Zizhen
When I was teenager, growing up in a small town in Zibo, Shandong, I often read this poem however I think I did not fully understand the meaning of it until I left my hometown to London. But through experiencing the passing of time and being away from my family makes me cherish traditions and the culture I grow up in, hence I started using my works to explore the meaning and the cycle of life and story telling through a queer lens.
Throughout my teens I trained in Qingdao in European 17th and 18th century painting techniques. I typically start with a monochromatic detailed drawing in oil and then I layer my colours with glazing techniques to pay tribute to processes that were used by historical artists such as Angelica Kauffman, Rachel Ruysch, Artemisia Gentileschi and Caravaggio. The deliberate labor-intensive painting process gives me the chance to have conversations with the old master artists. Between the intricate layers, I am finding my way of meditation, from there I can create a portal to connect my mind and the world, the past and future, the present and imagination.
Heavily influenced by rococo fashion and drag performances, I am treating each work as a stage play that breathes, lives and expresses itself, draperies and frames often create boundary and privacy for my scenes. Claude Cahun stated: “Under this mask, another mask. I will never finish removing all these faces”, I am wishing to explore the multifaceted aspects of identity and individuality. Like Carol Hanisch I also believe the personal is political. I weave Chinese mythology and historical objects into my narratives, from ancient tales to how they penetrate into our contemporary culture and politics, to see through beyond how our society is constructed. From there, I hope the “portals” that I have created will also be able resonate personally with audiences.
With both my grandmothers’s aging and developing dementia, I began researching Dutch Golden age Memento Mori and Vanitas paintings. My research has compelled me to investigate what is the meaning of life? How do we connect with our surroundings and what is eternity? By using symbolism that has already crossed my past from Chinese and Western culture, I am trying to untangle the questions, but the answers always leave me wondering. But as Oscar Wilde wrote in Lady Windermere's Fan (1892): "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”. We may not be able to make sense of everything but we can aspire to see the bright side of life.
@_XU.YANG_