Bortolami is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Yuan Yuan, the artist’s first in the United States. The paintings on view extend Yuan’s ongoing interest in the dissolution of familiar images and environments. Recurring motifs of manmade landscapes, water, and aquatic life merge with vernacular urban Asian settings and Western art-historical imagery to create exquisitely detailed, dynamic, and surreal worlds.
Through both highly refined and broad, gestural brushstrokes, his technique of painting “wet-on-wet” creates surfaces that seem nearly liquid: forms coalesce only to melt back into shifting color and light upon closer inspection. Memory, place, and time remain in a state of constant slippage as familiar spaces give way to something less stable, hovering between recognition and disappearance.
On view at The Upstairs at 39 Walker.
Bortolami — The Upstairs at 39 Walker