“To me, the lines and shapes in my painting are distorted and abstracted human bodies, and I let them interact with each other, creating a chaotic relationship within them as a metaphor for the tumultuous living condition of human beings.”
— Fang Yuan
In a world where figurative art dominates, Yuan Fang’s vivacious tempest strikes its canvas with ferocious speed, the swirling lines forming visual trails that slashes all ties to the constraints of representation.
Bold, ebullient lines of black strike viewers with immediacy; they enter the present work faintly, from the top left, gaining vigour and momentum as they form concentric loops throughout the centre of the composition. At times, Fang leaves traces of movements in dried paint, reviving its potency with a flick of the wrist, conjuring the violent brushstrokes of Francis Bacon. Their paralleled approaches to controlled chaos was considered by Half Gallery owner Bill Powers, declaring that ‘Bacon’s figures don’t live in the real world. They live in geometry. Yuan’s work operates like that, too.’ i Otherwise, Fang’s lines are thick and intense, with larger swirls envelope around smaller ones, altogether overlaying a cloud of white, exuding a kind of animated flurry.
Employing brilliant hues of pink, white and black, the current work recalls abstract expressionist painter Lee Krasner, whom Fang has expressed as one of her influences. In particular, the two share a brilliant interplay between form and colour, one that subverts traditional ideals of femininity; by situating the colour pink within the potent force that runs throughout Untitled #01, Fang challenges notions of femininity as soft and delicate– a visible departure from her earlier Rococo-esque works as seen in her 2019 solo exhibition at Sojourner Gallery. As Fang declared, ‘the evolution of my paintings is instinctive and smooth’, with softly blended quasi-figurative works gradually giving way to bold, defiant abstraction as she reached artistic maturity. ii Incidentally, her solo show at Half Gallery was named ‘Stratosphere’ to signify the ‘new velocity’ of her most recent works, which seem to detail how an object can move so fast that physics and gravity relinquish their holds. iii In developing her own distinct visual language, she reclaims a genre that has been canonically reserved for male artists.
Eschewing any sketches on canvas and through ‘getting involved with the canvas’, Fang’s artistic practice emphasises the intuitive physicality of the body. iv The artist creates small-scaled sketches on paper, then transposes its ‘spiritual source’ on canvas. v The present work unfolds with richness, allowing chaos and unpredictability to permeate with each stroke as it surfaces and coalesces. Further, Fang’s masterful handling of spray paint charges Untitled #01 with a contemporary spirit whilst it harkens back to a Greenbergian modernism. The present work, pulsating with energy, teeters on the fine line between delicate and fierce, impulsive and controlled.
i Bill Powers, quoted in Vittoria Benzine, ‘What Would Francis Bacon’s Paintings Look Like if He Listened to Katy Perry?’, Brooklyn Magazine, 19 January 2023, online ii Fang Yuan, quoted in Shihui Zhou, ‘Fang Yuan: The Enlightenment of My Art Practice Comes More From New York City’, Lattitude Gallery, August 2020, online iii Ibid. iv Ibid. v Fan Yuan, quoted in, ‘Emerging Artist to Buy Now: Yuan Fang’, ARTRA Advisory, 4 June 2022, online
Provenance
LATITUDE Gallery, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner