Sin City Oasis
Lori Ortiz
reading honoring Marlene Tseng Yu’s magnificent painting exhibit at the Las
Vegas Art Museum, Donald Kuspit proposed a future with “islands of art…oases.”
In this fast growing, casino sprouting, extravaganza of a city, Yu’s spiritual
vision of the universe spread optimism of a different kind. Her sections of
painted nature are inspired by microscopic, glacial, oceanic, and celestial
forces. The paintings’ visual festivity is a foil for
the nearby beckoning neon. Embedded in the subterranean dens of
titillation and lost dreams, are the artistry of Cirque de Soleil, Celine Dion,
and Dale Chihuly. But off the strip, Yu’s meditative scenes bring the
untrammeled grandeur of the surrounding nature to the city. Closest to home are
three 2003 paintings from her series “Canyon and Red Rocks” inspired by earlier
visits. She juxtaposes the complementary blue-green colors found in the canyon
landscape and in the bright western light. The museum’s Dr. James Mann curated
this second LVAM exhibit of Yu’s “Forces of Nature” series. The body of work
spans several sub-series of ongoing themes.
Yu draws on Asian
landscape traditions. The new work includes colors created by the mind of the
artist and seen on flights of the imagination. They recall the digital colors
by which we have come to know the outer edges of the universe. The bright hues
are the golden nuggets to be found at LVAM. Azo yellow particles float in the Milky
Way. The 2003 Song of the
Universe is a 20 foot
panoramically mapped view that includes a glowing planet. In other works, Yu’s
shorthand employs white as cloud, wave or distant glint. The colors are
subliminal abstract devices but primarily cry for eroding scapes, human touch,
and life as we know it.
Recurring pleated fan
shapes suggest the petrified. The straight lines serve to direct or halt the
eyes journey around the painting. Two oval canvases are like aquariums for
viewing the continental drift. But there is magic in the cavernous museum. In
“Sunken Treasure” the find is a band of seahorses. If Las Vegas is looking for
immortality in an art star, Mann is forward thinking in presenting Yu – who
spends her life achieving a vision of a world that will outlast us and spreads
the word in pictures.
