Mind Set Art Center is pleased to announce the solo exhibition Escaping Landscape by Taiwanese artist YANG Yu-Ning, which marks her first solo exhibition at the gallery. Escaping Landscape will present 17 of YANG’s recent ink brush paintings which focus on landscapes and plants.
In recent years, Yang has been trying to push the boundaries of ink brush painting. She uses overnight ink and paper to create a new way of interaction between water, ink and image. This opens up a new perspective on the medium. In “Escaping Landscape”, Yang focuses on landscapes and plants and she further explores the delicate connections among memories, landscape, imagery and imagination as visual and sensorial mediums. For the artist, her memories are like scattered fragments that, along with actual landscapes, reconstruct a unique visual experience. Like she says in the artistic statement, “Those interesting and charming records only appear when I cross path with the moment I live in. Without the context of my experience and memories, would they appear dull and mundane? I can’t help but wonder if the scenes that most effectively evoke people’s memories are truly real.”
In Yang’s paintings, landscapes are not an objective existence, but rather the result of subjective interpretations. In a day and age where our world is displayed in the cropped view of different screens, the images, while still have their meanings, tend to lose their fine nuances. In her 2024 painting “Fritillaria and Pine”, Yang reinterprets the image of potted plants by leaving large negative spaces with the patches of ink and place the plants and glassware center frame. The composition is akin to that of a mobile phone snap and the whole image serves as slice of life. On the other hand, “Unchanging as the Sea” conveys an abundance of emotions and energy through dancing branches and tumbling waves. The artist uses expressive brush strokes and rich black ink to lead us to the deeper question behind the seascape: Is there a type of image that transcends personal memories and evoke a sense of resonance from all people? The artists remarks on the pursuit of such image in her statement, “If we can elevate the idea of a landscape above the default expectations on how they should be perceived, perhaps within pure forms, there could be commonalities that truly touch people.”
