Tang Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of “Dimension Imitation Transformation: Huang Yishan Solo Exhibition” on April 27, 2017. Curated by Dai Zhuoqun, this exhibition presents eight new works from Huang Yishan’s recent series. The curator has titled the exhibition “Dimension Imitation Transformation,” cleverly using a homophone for the historic Vimalakirti Sutra paintings, while concisely summarizing and refining several core concepts within the artist’s work, related to the “dimension” of space, the “imitation” of images, and the “transformation” of structure.
In Huang Yishan’s new series, he breaks with conventional explorations of painting’s strange structures, broadly utilizing the construction of reliefs to give the artworks multiple dimensions and interstitial qualities. Huang also dissects and represents the images and surfaces from landmark artworks within art history. Their existential relationships with the artist derive distortions and new meanings from fine internal deliberation.
The structure of space, the logic of narrative, and the consideration of materials are issues that Huang has always explored in his work. These new pieces comprehensively utilize diverse collages, painted images, relief effects, and the principles of parallel perspective. Through rigorous and minute production methods, he creates visually illusory spaces and scenes on a two-dimensional plane. He formulates “scenes-within-scenes” and “paintings-within-paintings,” which seem like traditional multi-panel screen paintings. The irregular forms of the works, together with the reliefs, strengthen the vivid materiality of the scene.
The artist creates a labyrinth for the viewer, such that the act of viewing itself becomes confusing and dissociative; the unknown is situated both inside and outside the painting. The tension between the work and viewing is manifested when facing these changing emotions. His paintings-within-paintings directly appropriate famous artworks from history and ready-made pictures, as well as jokes and banter, which are the three portals into his work. These layered, interlocking misunderstood “sites” guide the viewer down an unfamiliar side path; the artist himself builds a parallel world of self-awareness and conceptual projection within the convoluted chain of art history and multiple visual dimensions.
Curator: Dai Zhuoqun
Dai Zhuoqun is an independent curator and art critic. He currently lives and works in Beijing. In 2007, he founded Contemporary Art magazine, where he served as chief editor and art director. He was also the executive director of White Box Museum of Art. In 2009, he launched and jointly curated the “Warm Winter” protest project in Beijing, one of the most important art events in recent years. He has since planned exhibitions and lectures with numerous art institutions, art academies, and museums.
He has also published articles in international art magazines and other publications. He has curated exhibitions such as “Games” and “The Awakening of Things” (White Box Museum of Art, Beijing, 2011), “Superfluous Things” (Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2013), “Old Bloke” (Gallery Yang, Beijing, 2013), “Conscious: Twelve Views on Painting” (Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2014), and “Civilization” (White Box Museum of Art, Beijing, 2013; OCAT, Xi’an, 2014; Hubei Institute of Fine Arts Museum, Wuhan, 2015).
Huang Yishan
B.1983 Guangdong, China
Lives and works in Guangzhou, China
Evoking surrealist tropes in his paintings, his imagined worlds are often clinical in their spatial abstractions, the narratives taking place in what seems like hospital rooms or unfurnished houses. Upon further inspection, the viewer might find a strange detail – a human head or a half-hidden pool of blood – that interrupts these sanitary atmospheres.
Huang Yishan selected solo exhibitions include: “Blue Sky”, Fei Gallery, Guangzhou; “Not an investigation and research of physical things Ant metaphysical space narrative” Tong Space, Beijing. Huang’s works have been featured in group exhibitions including “2016 National Art Exhibition of Drawing,” National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; “Advancing Structure –Art Exhibition of Young Teachers from Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts,” Guangzhou Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China; “Inside – Outside,” Klein Sun Gallery, New York, NY; “Guangdong Youth,” Sabaki Space, Guangzhou, China; “Seven Ways: Image-Making and it’s Discontents,” O2 ART, Beijing, China; Times Art Museum, Beijing, China; “Image Mash-up: 2010 Invitation Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Oil Painting,” Shenzhen Art Museum, Guangdong, China; Xi’an Art Museum, Xi’an, China; “Another World Boundary,” Tang Contemporary, Bangkok. Huang Yishan currently works as a lecturer in the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
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