AUTOTRAUMAPOEIA 0

4 x 8 feet

Mixed Media, XIAO YANG, 2016—Present

Photo Credit: Mark Snyder, Martin Chittum, Redentor Jimenez, Josh Elston,

Yang’s installation work explores the possibility of illustrating the individual experience of cultural alienation in both physical and psychological spaces into a tangible form. Her work draws inspiration from the micro and macro and employs scale to reconfigure and substantialize this symbiotic relationship that we have with the universe, as the microorganism lives on our physical bodies that shares the notion of the symbiotic relationship as ourselves to the universe. The subverted scale in between the micro and the macro is for the sake of revealing our own relationship to the gigantic universe which is not very much different than the microorganism to us. The fluid, unnamable abstractions often run parallel to the theme of the uncanny as the artist tries to situate herself within a new culture that is becoming more familiar and her cultural roots that are now feeling more removed, operating between being “home-like” and “unlike home” within a shift of personal identities.

The large scale painting installations serve as a conduit to transmit the artist’s own presence to the viewers. When the being is smaller than our own physicality, it is an object, a thing that can be obtained or owned. However, when the being is larger than our own physicality, it operates within a space that inverts the idea from obtainable “thing” to an unattainable “no-thing” since the only way to approach the space is to travel through the field in which it constructs and supports. Standing in front of the work, the viewer’s relationship to their body is transformed as the artist shares the sensation of her own lack of belonging.

The fluidity based characteristic of the media itself across the boundary of definition lays between living and non-living that highlights a wrestling with the artist’s attempt to manipulate the composition while struggling with the ink’s desire to flow in every possible direction. Within this struggle between artist and medium, control and chaos, a dance of life forces are enacted.  The process of creating the body of works demanded the full integration of the artist’s own physical presence rather than the limited activities of only the hands. Using these full-body actions, the artist’s presence is reincarnated in each piece of the work and enabled to trigger a spiritual dialogue with viewer through an unavoidable confrontation with the large scale works.