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Chi-Rund Tseng on Wang Ya-hui
Wang Ya-hui , a young Taiwanese artist who won the 2007 Loop Award in Barcelona, has worked mainly in video since 2002. |
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Chi-Rund Tseng on Wang Ya-hui
Wang Ya-hui , a young Taiwanese artist who won the 2007 Loop Award in Barcelona, has worked mainly in video since 2002.
In the 2006 Shanghai Biennale, Wang Ya-hui’s work Sunshine on Tranquility was installed on the top floor of the museum. Richard Vine, editor of Art in America described it as “ the most engrossing work of the entire biennale…that sense of awakening at various moments to find oneself in a new place, where certain elements are the same but the context has utterly changed.” He expressed well the main concept of her work. Ya-hui uses daily life elements to recreate a new order different from reality. She examines the intimate relationship between people and the objects that surround them.
In her latest work, Visitor, Ya-hui focuses on memory and the belief that all lives are constructed by them. She questions how personal one’s world is, and how much of that world can be shared. She believes that through this process of sharing, people can extend their personal worlds—even including memories of the past. Visitor also presents a very poetic and powerful visual language. In this video, a small cloud travels through an old Taiwanese apartment, while a visitor coming from out of nowhere creates a link between the viewer and the cloud, the space and fantasy.
Her most recent project, When I Look at the Moon, makes an interesting connection between reality and fantasy, while using her self and the moon as subject. This project will be represented through photographs and video. In the photograph, a beautiful, bright white balloon (held by the artist with a fine string) appears in the blue night sky. The balloon appears to be a full moon, but at the end of the video, she cuts the string and the balloon floats away.
After having her work shown at the Shanghai Biennale and LOOP Barcelona, Ya-hui’s audience has grown to international proportions. Ya-hui completed a residency in New York last year, and is now preparing to go to Paris for another residency program.
