One of the captivating features of abstract paintings is the fact that artists, without the shelter and shackle of familiar forms, must bare their souls. In turn the viewer sees through a portal into their own mind deepening still as long as that sacred gaze is held. Yuecen Wang, an emerging talent who has been on my radar, exemplifies this profound interaction through her art.
With a BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art and later an MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, Yuecen has developed a distinctive style. Her prolific output has been showcased in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Baltimore, and London. Her paintings invite viewers into an otherworldly realm where, in the shade of intertwining vines or glowing, rock-like beings collide silently in melancholic serenity. Her style removes conventional boundaries, inviting the viewer’s eye and mind to wander into new interpretations and uncharted emotional landscapes.
Her artwork reflects a dynamic evolution, mirroring her personal growth and broadening perspectives. The use of earthy colors mixed with vibrant tones captures transitions, both within the canvas and beyond, suggesting continual change. Recurring motifs in her series—from green suns symbolizing power and order to ‘containers’ indicating a harmonious interplay between object and subject—highlight the cyclical nature of life and death, suggesting both permanence and transience.
Her latest “Mud-Field” series, serves as a new slide to be viewed through the lens crafted in her earlier work. Commuting across London on a bike through through the muddiest of paths and through the rainiest of days, this daily journey and potential life and death struggles that can occur simply getting to work perspire through into the canvas. The ‘dirty’ and complex hues in the “Mud-Field” accentuate the thematic richness of her style by giving it a grounded, organic quality that alludes to the natural growth and decay that bookmark all of life’s processes. This new texture further underscores the transitory, impermanent nature of this psychological cosmos.
In her work, Yuecen weaves Western individualism and existential inquiry with Eastern notions of void and minimalism. The idea that the world is a sequence of accidents and unpredictable changes as outlined in Bataille’s ideas on existence being determined by spontaneous transformations, and the inevitable overflow of life beyond structured confines, are in some way graphically embodied in Yuecen’s abstract mudfields. Her exploration of these themes through abstract forms like the “Green Sun” challenges conventional identities, fostering a dialogue between the visible and the invisible, the self and the cosmos.
Yuecen has also recently conducted workshops in London, where she helped participants sketch their inner landscapes and further explored the relationship between creative expression and reflection. Painting now, according to Yuecen, is like taking a moment from a record documenting the psychological landscape as she observes the world. Her paintings are discussions that are left open-ended and encourage individual interpretation rather than a final verdict. Because the world is never static, her inspiration is perpetually renewed.
All photos © Yuecen Wang.
