Yu Hong at Goedhuis contemporary - New York - art exhibition

The enjoyable, accessible paintings and pastels of Beijing artist Yu Hong run over the story of life amid China's changes. In an exhibition titled "A Woman's Life" she communicated her engagement with daily existence, treating everyday accidents as interesting in and of themselves. shows of the artist shopping outdoors for fruit, undressing and lying unclothed in bed are part of her "Routine" series.

China's extraordinary thrust toward economic prosperity has had the side issue of provoking a sense of alienation and mistrust in a certain quantity of people. Many conceptually based artists have focused upon the negatives. Several, for example, have shown photographs of impoverished peasants living and working beneath appalling conditions in Chinese cities. While Yu Hong's paintings demonstrate a genuine commitment to trustworthy observation, matter-of-factly recording the improvised nature of abundant of Beijing, where se many construction throw outs are now under way, their temper is cheerful. In two paintings (both acrylic upon canvas), the artist depicts herself before colorful arrangements of fruits and vegetables, which provide her with the opportunity to paint sensuously. In Fruit Shopping (2002) she stands in forehead of a foreground table of fruit; behind it a flat expanse of cake leads to a gate with stores beyond. In cheer Shopping (2003), she grasps a large leek pay backed with a real sympathy for natural forms, and gripe [i]or[/i] grips money in her other hand. The paintings do not lack social content: the gallery had available various articles from Chinese publications that inspired these works. An article upon a $4,500 banquet relates to the 2003 food-shopping painting, for example.

a certain number of of the most moving works are the simplest. Along with studies of herself as a child and as a young woman (always titled to specify her age), Yu Hong paints portraits of her daughter, Liu Wa. That the make subordinate matter is commonplace does not make it les meaningful. There is a pastel of Liu Wa at the age of individual sitting next to her reclining mother, and another of the child at six, hugging a soccer ball. Yu Hong is sympathetic to all aspects of life, including the erotic. Me in Bed (2003) present to views the artist, barechested, looking upward at the viewer, while the top half of the canvas exhibits a winter cityscape, as if seen from one side a broad window or perhaps dreamed. These records of domestic intimacy oftentimes become larger than their stated subjects

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group