Mind Set Art Center is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Shanghai-based artist Yu Ji. The show is also the debut solo exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan. Beneath the Skin, the show continues to explore the relationship between her practice, uneventful exercise, and her personal reflection on life. Trained as a sculptor, Yu Ji has used various materials such as wax, stone, lime and paper to build poetic narratives of her investigation on human and the world. Always blending her daily life experience with art-making process and paying attention to discover essential meaning of working, Yu-Ji develops an distinctive way to make her works carry strong emotional affection but stay in a simple artistic form. The artist will be participated in a special on-site art-making program during her stay in Taipei from April 3rd -12th . By using the materials she collects/finds in the neighborhood, she plans to produce several works based on her own interaction with the environment and local residents. The artist will be present for opening receptions on Saturday, 13 April from 3:30 to 5:30 PM.
Born in 1985, Yu Ji graduated from the Fine Art College of Shanghai University and later soon is considered one of the most potential, emerging young sculptors in China. Her works are easily recognized by simplified outline along with rich textures and layers. Unlike many abstract sculptors, Yu-Ji doesn’t carry out pure stylistic experimentation and resorting to all kind of forms in her artist expression; she finds her ways to make her creation as a physical experience of actually bringing something into life. The exhibition theme, In the Skin, reflects her long-time observation on human body and how the body is presented in artist expression and showed at museum space. She intentionally ignores the details and makes a fragmentary body, which emphasizes on depicting the missing parts/wounds that we usually see on the museum displays. “Because of its imperfection, the object comes to live. I try to freeze a moment that the flesh is disjointed from the bone, no breathe, pure existing.” Yu-Ji wrote in her exhibition statement.
The other major series in the show is her mixture experimentations of wax materials. Utilizing the feature of wax, Yu-Ji coats the quotidian materials with different kinds of wax to create disharmony feeling and interesting analogy. In Wax Column, for instance, papers are repeatedly piled and layered up with dripping wax in between and finally stop in a square shape, sitting on a flat wooden board. Naturally it creates a sense of conflict as well as complementary features of the two materials. The dialogue between tangible and intangible body part in her body series, and distinguishing characteristics of tender and tenacious mediums she manipulates in her wax experimentation are just like everyday life we live in, full of surprises and possibilities.
