Emotional Training for Abstract Expressionist Practice

Yuan Fang     ｜ Catharsis along with Control, Resistance and Reconciliation, the
Emotional Training for Abstract Expressionist Practice

Written by Peiyue Wu

Six months ago, when interviewing the founder of Lattitude Gallery, Shihui Zhou, I was hit by a
sentence she said: "The time for everyone to truly experience the most important thing in life
can be very long, or very short." Seeking opportunities in New York under economic pressure,
Shihui was passionate about her artistic practice. At the same time, she was also vigilantly
aware that her flame could be extinguished by external force majeure at any time. During that
time, I never personally experienced the fragility of such wishful thinking and persistence,
therefore overly romanticizing this uncertainty. The reason why I resonated with her words is
more because I was putting all my eggs into one basket during that period.

When Covid-19 pandemic became a force majeure faced by all the artists residing in New York,
many of my friends, including myself, gradually exhausted the last bit of resilience in their
temper after three months of no improvement in pandemic control. In this summer full of
farewells, Lattitude Gallery is still insisting. In addition to hosting several online events, it also
launched Yuan Fang 's solo exhibition "Rushing Down The Cliff" at the beginning of August.

Yuan Fang: Rushing Down The Cliff installation view. © Yuan Fang

Shihui said the reason she chose to show Fang's works as the first exhibition after quarantine
was because she learned that Fang insisted on working in her studio every day even during the
epidemic. In Shihui’s perspective, Fang’s attitude towards art fits her original intention of building
this space: she hopes to resist the fragility of artistic practice, and constantly gather and glue
scattered emerging artists with a certain willpower from their studios.

Since moved to New York, I have often met Fang at some opening receptions of galleries and in
the audience of some lectures. Before I understood her artistic ambition, I could vaguely feel
what Shihui said as Fang's temperament. Even in this overly crowded circle, she is still that kind
of girl who always leaves strong impressions on people. Of course this is partly attributed to her
talent in styling: just like skillfully expressing herself on canvas, she can always handle those
bold patterns and color combinations, thus becoming the one who is standing out. What
impressed me even more was her facial expression which was commensurate with "high-end
fashion." That kind of slightly detached and dissociated look is not deliberately creating a sense
of mystery, but more about reaching a tacit understanding with the surroundings. That is to say,
the interpersonal relationship in this city does not necessarily demand too much acting with a
sense of intimacy.

Some people may mistakenly think that people who often dress up at art events are only greedy
for attention. But this kind of rhetoric does not seem to apply to the art scene in New York.
Because there is something more attractive than getting praise and recognition: getting to know
creative pairs with comparable energy. This means that outside of these seemingly superficial,
cutscene social events, an artist can only maintain a confident, demure and not overly catering
posture only if he or she dedicates enough in the studio, and socializes naturally around groups
of people with high abilities. At the same time, the intuition trained in daily practice can even
help artists more keenly capture opportunities in social arena: they always seem to know where
the next person who is worthy of a wholehearted conversation will be.

Yuan Fang: Rushing Down The Cliff installation view. © Yuan Fang

A few days before New York was dragged into social isolation by the pandemic, Fang and I went
to the Armory Show art fair this year. At that time, some confirmed new cases had already
caused panic in the city, but I still had to venture to that crowded place because of an interview
mission. On the contrary, Fang just seemed to simply keep up her "cannot care so much"
energy, unwilling to miss any opportunity to see great paintings in person. That was the only
time the two of us were alone together. In addition, because it happened at the turning point of
the outbreak of the pandemic, there was a sense of magic when looking back. The most vivid
thing from that day I remember was still a very special dress she wore. The skirt is colorful, but
not too overwhelming. It is closer to the kaleidoscope of rainbow colors reflected by bubbles
under the sun. Every time she was praised for that dress, after a moment of lightness, she could
always jump out of the eyes of others and focused on the works exhibited again, keenly and
slightly critically, hunting for highlights of this trip.

The reason why I took so much effort to present you the character of this fairly young artist is
because when you encounter her painting, those traits will naturally emerge. The silk and
satin-like fabrics made of different colors interlaced her very keen awareness. While trapping
you to stay on the surface, it can also quickly grab your deeper consciousness and extend it into
the interior of the picture.

When she first came to New York to study, Fang was regular to MoMA to see abstract
expressionist paintings over and over again. The works of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko left
a strong impression on her and made her realize that painting has, as what she called, the
"magic power". As a result, she decided to explore the spiritual space that can be molded in
abstract expressionist painting without hesitation.

We may not need to use those theoretical tools of abstract expressionism to understand the
connotation of Fang's works, because her paintings are more about exquisite female
sentiments. She once told me that she didn't want to let others know that she was an overly
emotional person, but in painting, she can face her sensations thoroughly.

From my perspective, Fang's early paintings are close to products of self-punishing. After
allowing herself to be swallowed by emotions and desires, she then utilized the will to survive to
squeeze out the sharpest part of intuition and leave it on the canvas. When we talked about her
works "The Seven Emotions and Six Desires" and "Running To You, A Tearing Hurry" created in
2018, Fang borrowed a passage to express her attitude towards love: "Human beings living in
the world are filled with love and desire. We live alone and die alone; we enter into the world
alone, and leave alone. Past, present and future, those are stages we have to experience by
ourselves and there is no substitution."

The Seven Emotions and Six Desires   七情六欲, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

Running To You, A Tearing Hurry, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 40x60 inches

For Fang, painting is a response and practice to this Buddhist scripture, and it is the process of
her pulling with countless flashes: "Everytime I am deeply attracted to anything, instead of
embracing, I will try my best to escape from it. But most of the time it does not work, because I
am an emotional person. When I am in this contradictory state, I will use painting as a tool to
vent a sense of frustration."

Perhaps many people think that in this topically-dominated era, sticking to abstract
expressionism is an unwise career choice. This assumption seems to imply that the growth
space for abstractionist painters is very limited. However, I personally believe that this type of
works are a rarer emotional archive than those with loud topics or realistic. As time goes by, the
mental state and willpower of an artist, as well as the influence of the external world, can be
very intuitively reflected on the picture.

In the exhibition, Fang presents her experiments and explorations in the past year. If her early
works are more inclined to the scheduling and use of traumatic emotions, what she pursues in
the several paintings included in this exhibition seems to be more controlled and complicated.
The series of works titled "Spiral Gaze" and "Echoes of Ruins" created in 2019 record the
artist's thoughts on the urban space in which she is located. That year, earth-shaking changes
took place around Fang's studio. According to her, buildings there were constantly being blasted
and torn down every day, and new buildings kept rising up from the ground. Fang imagined the
world formed by these reinforced concrete as the impermanent meteorological changes in
nature, trying to capture the state of blurred boundaries when man-made objects showing
certain characteristics of the natural objects, such as the scorching sun and gray-blue color
reflected on the concrete floor. "Humans and cold steel have become a unit. What humans feel
in this urban world is the gaze and reflection from nature and their own buildings."

Spiral Gaze #3, 2019, acrylic on wood panel, 24x18 inches

Spiral Gaze #4, 2019, acrylic on wood panel, 24x18 inches

Echoes of Ruins #5, 2019, acrylic on wood panel, 24x18 inches

The Covid-19 pandemic that plunged New York into fear and silence in 2020 undoubtedly
pushed Fang's potential to a new stage. The spiral structure often used by Fang Yuan earlier
was strengthened in the series of paintings created during the epidemic, such as "Immersing,
Trembling" and "Gaping, Vanishing", which depicting the entire human being. The dizziness of
being involved in a chaotic and unpredictable epidemic, according to Fang's own words, is what
she tried to capture: "a frozen moment in a field of rapid movements." What's interesting is that
when their overall compositions reflect the chaotic world at the moment, every brushstroke in
the details reveals the artist's deeper determination and decisive mind.

Immersing, Trembling, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 28x22 inches

Gaping, Vanishing, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 28x22 inches

If the previous paintings are more of intuitive records of what she preserves as dairies, when
what she experienced every day is very different, fluctuating emotions will always make the
paintings unable to form a series. In the case of limited travel, the artist can focus more on the
perception of life that is slowly bred from the inside, and strengthen the ability of staying alone.
Fang regards the development of her works in the past year as the maturity of her personality: "I
started to understand what was happening around me, and most importantly, tried to reconcile
with the world."

This is also the first time Fang exhibited her works on paper. The titles of these works are made
up of numbers. Fang sees every single piece of work on paper is a page from her sketchbook.
"Works on paper are like substitutes or warm-up for painting. For example, when painting is not
available to do in terms of physical limitations, drawing is a more convenient way to express my
emotions." Drawings for her are more concentrating on organizing her memories, including what
she took in when seeing other paintings. In a more casual medium (compared with framed
canvas), she tends not to lock herself in the frame of abstract expressionism, but will leak a little
bit of other venues of influence she absorbs.

202001, 2020, ink on paper, 12x9 inches

202003, 2020, ink on paper, 12x9 inches

In addition, Fang and Shihui Zhou share a common passion in fashion. Because of this special
layer of connection, Shihui has a fairly unique perspective when interpreting Fang's works.
Shihui, who studies fashion and then developed as a textile artist, always thinks about the role
of the human body when assembling clothes of different colors and patterns into installations,
such as the state that these clothes once enveloped the human body, and how to show their
relationship between inside and outside space through connections between different patterns
and color blocks. In Shihui’s eyes, Fang understands fashion as the process of painting people
with different printed fabrics. Therefore, when she puts different colors and patterns on the
canvas, she is also unconsciously considering and adjusting the scale of the human body.

In the process of writing for "Rushing Down The Cliff", I was constantly thinking about
what does art reports, art criticism, and even art writing mean to me at the moment. When I
extracted from New York, the art utopia that once gave me a huge illusion, and landed in a more
down-to-earth living condition in China, where should I put those memories of people I met in
New York in my current stage of life? In the end, I chose to avoid the previous writing model that
demanded novelty or profound meaning and completely break away from the context of
contemporary art, focusing more on the creative essence and the artist’s personal life, emotions

and development. Hopefully, this article, closer to a close-up feedback on the artist and
exhibition, can give readers who are experiencing turning points or chaotic changes in their lives
a sense of belonging and understanding from the words.

____________

Yuan Fang (b. Shenzhen, China) is a visual artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. She
graduated from the Visual and Critical Studies Program at School of Visual Arts (BFA) with
Rhodes Family Award for Outstanding Achievement. Her works have been widely exhibited in
the United States and China, including Yuan Fang: Rushing Down The Cliff, Latitude Gallery,
Brooklyn (2020); Yuan Fang: Liminalities, Time Arts, New York (2019); Cross-Cultural Practice:
Recent Works by Chinese Artists in New York, 285 Jay Street, Brooklyn (2019) and Artificial
Boundary, Fou Gallery, Brooklyn (2018).
Fang's practice began with a self-detachment from her external environment and maintained a
rebellious posture of exile. Throughout her upbringing, she has been constantly experiencing
anxiety reflected by her surroundings. For her, history is not a concept that people understand,
but a real, vivid and tangible experience, and social changes are swiftly forcing yesterday’s past
to become the past forever. This divided background generates her lack of belonging, and her
attempts to explore the sense of self-estrangement in her paintings.

Artist Website: yuanfang.art