YIN ZHAOYANG

It has been nearly ten years since Yin Zhaoyang began making his Landscape series in 2011. As a theme, the landscape is a vast realm that has been embraced in China and the West for more than one thousand years, and reexamining and re-interpreting something so ancient is where the creativity lies. Yin diligently examined and copied ancient Chinese literati paintings, then he studied the beginnings and later development of Impressionism and Expressionism in China, focusing on the comparative study of the language of painting. Yin Zhaoyang is an immensely talented and confident artist, and he has a careful, thorough understanding of the Chinese and Western traditions. Almost from the beginning of this series, he created immensely individual landscapes. With dynamic creativity, he has broken barriers and experimented for ten years, advancing the techniques and implications in his paintings. Thick textures, deep colours, and tight structures give the landscapes a fierce, direct visual effect. The language of Western Abstract Expressionism is fused with Eastern visual imagery, presenting a valiant power and vigorous tone. ‘I used a famous mountain as a starting point for seeing myself and completing myself.’ Yin Zhaoyang’s landscapes draw from the ancients and from nature, and in the end, their uniqueness stems from his self-projection.

For several years, Mount Song has been a key source for Yin Zhaoyang’s sketches. In his recent work, he directly replicates portions of the mountain’s rock, then he applies blue and green pigments to that rough texture. Blue and Green were made in this way, with minimalist blocks and colours that have an elegant and forceful sensibility. The two installations are extensions of Yin’s Landscape series, constituting a new creative direction for him.

The three sculptures span nearly ten years. In Inflation (2008), people are pressed by outside objects until they are distorted, and in Alien (2007-2008), marble figures produce alienation from themselves. In his new work Alien (2019), Yin Zhaoyang first scorches the surface of a piece of wood into charcoal, paints it with a layer of the pitch to entirely transform it into a demon life, then binds it. His materials and production methods have become more complex, and his forms have become tenser. The three are connected into a spiritual thread, which reflects Yin Zhaoyang’s concern for and consideration of society and himself.