Artists

Yu Hong

Press release

For her first solo exhibition in London, Yu Hong presents a series of large-scale new acrylic-on-canvas paintings. Based between Beijing and New York, the artist, who has been described as one of the most important voices of her generation, unveils a selection of poignant and poetic paintings that each explore a distinctive state of mind or consciousness. Inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s Island of the Dead (1880-1901), this suite of paintings expands on the body of work unveiled in Yu Hong’s solo exhibition at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah in 2023, and follows her first major exhibition in Europe, where she transformed the Chiesetta della Misericordia in Venice through a series of new works, organised by The Asian Art Initiative of the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

For this presentation, Yu Hong focuses on the concept of psychological landscapes, with each painting embodying an emotion or experience that unites us all: be it love, expectation, survival, oblivion or repose. In each of these works we witness the complexity of these experiences; the light with the dark. In Island of Love (2023), we discover a tender, seemingly blissful scene with two entwined figures intimately cocooned within a pink blossom tree, the lovers’ outstretched arms uniting above them in a symbol of hope. Yet on a towering flowering foundation they are alone in a vast expanse of water. The foreboding sea, with its waves pounding against the rock, becomes one with the sky, painted in what could be perceived as a heavenly, golden glow or a tempestuous volatility. In Island of Life (2024) there is a similar evocative glow, with two reclining figures – perhaps Adam and Eve, with the lush apple tree and exotic birds beside them – only visible by their legs. The painting, depicting equally solitary figures with just the sea beneath them, can be seen as a metaphor for paradise and the contradictions of life: the balance between joy and suffering, strength and weakness, temptation and control, love and loss.