.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
You Jin’s bright paintings explode with a shattering of color and space. Doorways and staircases lead in every direction, forming intricate, layered sequences of chambers and apertures that lead the eye deep into the painting’s constructed space. Fragments of contemporary architecture emerge from the leafy undergrowth, while bright orange, lime and turquoise hues jostle for attention. Yet despite the appearances of chaos, You Jin's painted worlds are in fact made up of carefully constructed vantage points - a collage of different spaces, depths, and perspectives, coexisting simultaneously within a single picture plane.
Born in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, You Jin graduated from the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, and now lives and works in Beijing. His early works depict surreal scenes in which images are combined and remixed into dream-like worlds, planes and shadows fragmented into vibrating lines of pure color. You Jin’s current work builds upon the same principles, but contains a stronger awareness of spatial depth and planar complexity. In Path - Backyard Garden , there are doors, windows, hallways and staircases – all transition points and portals that define our built environment – yet none of them seem to bear any spatial relationship with another. One fragment will appear coherent at first glance, only to shift as one’s gaze moves across the canvas. According to the artist, “Hybrid, mismatched arrangements of space are a new medium between man and the social environment… This new chaotic environment encompasses a new consumer awareness, new concepts of existence, and the depletion of all forms of culture and social interaction.”
You Jin’s work is also distinctive for its intense and psychedelic use of color. By applying pure pigments in strong lines and flat planes, You Jin achieves a pop-art aesthetic reminiscent of Warhol’s screen prints. In contrast to Andy Warhol’s stacked layers of color which emphasize the flatness of the picture plane, You Jin’s use of contrasting contour lines create an intricate spatial depth that evokes a four-dimensional space that extends beyond the canvas surface. Standing before this massive work, it’s impossible not to be drawn in by the panoply of tones and the constantly shifting planes of space and perspective, and to feel enveloped in You Jin’s multifaceted world.
Born in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, You Jin graduated from the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, and now lives and works in Beijing. His early works depict surreal scenes in which images are combined and remixed into dream-like worlds, planes and shadows fragmented into vibrating lines of pure color. You Jin’s current work builds upon the same principles, but contains a stronger awareness of spatial depth and planar complexity. In Path - Backyard Garden , there are doors, windows, hallways and staircases – all transition points and portals that define our built environment – yet none of them seem to bear any spatial relationship with another. One fragment will appear coherent at first glance, only to shift as one’s gaze moves across the canvas. According to the artist, “Hybrid, mismatched arrangements of space are a new medium between man and the social environment… This new chaotic environment encompasses a new consumer awareness, new concepts of existence, and the depletion of all forms of culture and social interaction.”
You Jin’s work is also distinctive for its intense and psychedelic use of color. By applying pure pigments in strong lines and flat planes, You Jin achieves a pop-art aesthetic reminiscent of Warhol’s screen prints. In contrast to Andy Warhol’s stacked layers of color which emphasize the flatness of the picture plane, You Jin’s use of contrasting contour lines create an intricate spatial depth that evokes a four-dimensional space that extends beyond the canvas surface. Standing before this massive work, it’s impossible not to be drawn in by the panoply of tones and the constantly shifting planes of space and perspective, and to feel enveloped in You Jin’s multifaceted world.