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Yang Mian
CMYK - Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei, Ink Grape Painting
2013

About the Item

YANG MIAN The paintings of Sichuan-based artist Yang Mian (b. 1970) challenge the new world order of media and digitization as well as basic notions of Chinese painting tradition. Yang's latest series, CMYK, now showing at M. Sutherland Fine Arts, questions the fundamental premise of visual perception. In this age of digital imagery, can one experience a reproduction of a great artwork in the same way as the original without any surrounding context? Further, can the Chinese literati painting ideals of reinterpreting and transcending the past be attained using material and techniques of our contemporary technological age? The latest series of works now on exhibit at M. Sutherland Fine Arts are based on Chinese paintings masterpieces dating from the Tang through the Qing Dynasty. Yang pushes the notion of the subtle, imperceptible changes of digital photography and the Internet that separate the image from the original in ways that the viewer cannot discern. Using computer and painstaking manual techniques, Yang further distills the elements of the original image into a completely new artistic vocabulary. No matter the size, medium or condition of the originals, Yang Mian expertly equalizes the various media into acrylic on canvas. Instead of wall fresco, or ink and mineral pigments on paper or silk, Yang creates a parallel universe by hand and machine, thoroughly modern but distantly based on the older, familiar images. Yang Mian was in the first class of students to return to the Sichuan Art Academy after the Cultural Revolution. Though trained in the "Beaux Arts" methodology, he quickly developed his own theoretical approaches to painting. From 1996 through 2007, Yang's oil paintings questioned the changing standards of beauty in modern Chinese society, making pictures inspired by advertising and the cosmetics industry. M. Sutherland Fine Arts exhibited Yang Mian's works in two shows at the gallery's former space on East 80th Street. The CMYK series began in 2000 when Yang Mian made an accidental discovery while preparing a lecture to a painting class at his alma mater. The only available image of Picasso's Girl before a Mirror (1932), had substandard resolution, so when it was projected on the screen, the CMYK dots - (cyan, magenta, yellow and key black), "created a chaotic mess of magnified color pixels." Yang was intrigued and started to think about how this effect could be used in his own paintings. After several years of trial and error, Yang Mian developed a unique creative process, using technical and manual manipulation to produce his CMYK paintings. In multiple steps on the computer, Yang separates out each of the color pixels and edits the image so that no color dots overlap as in regular digital reproductions, making hundreds of thousands of dot placement decisions per painting. He starts with the black dots, then adds blue/cyan, then red, with yellow last. Finally, he cuts out stencils using a special computer printer for each color and then laboriously paints the canvas layer by layer. At times, Yang breaks down the shades of blue into three different tonalities so that there are three separate cyan stencils instead of one. The result is Yang's personal interpretation: a unique image, seemingly so simple and mass produced but in reality a culmination of a multiple-week artistic endeavor singular in its complexity. In Yang Mian's mind, his CMYK work is not a rejection of history but a reaction to and extension of Chinese literati tradition. Yang Mian has exhibited in numerous academic solo and group shows throughout China, Asia and Europe, including several international Biennale exhibitions. Yang's works are part of numerous renowned private and museum collections throughout the world, from the Sigg Collection in Switzerland to the DeYoung Museum of San Francisco. We are privileged to exhibit Yang Mian's most recent CMYK paintings in New York. ABOUT THE GALLERY: For over a decade, M. Sutherland Fine Arts has exhibited masters of Chinese contemporary art. At the gallery you will find artists redefining their thousand year old traditions with approaches from using time honored techniques to contemporary artists speaking out with new Chinese aesthetics using Western methods and materials.

Creator:
Yang Mian (1970, Chinese)
Creation Year:
2013
Dimensions:
Height: 63 in (160.02 cm)Width: 23.5 in (59.69 cm)
Medium:
Acrylic
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
21st Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2751326803

'Towards Le Scathe Cove'. Contemporary mixed media landscape painting, Cornwall Original Artwork, Unframed _________________ January morning, heavy swell and a strong southwester, rain imminent, sheltering beneath lichen furred granite outcrops. A plein air painting from the series 'Holan ha Dor' (Meaning 'Salt and Earth in Cornish). West Cornwall is a harshly beautiful peninsula, jutting out into the wild tireless ocean, shaped and moulded by powerful salt laden Atlantic winds, and criss-crossed by ancient, tangled hedgerows. Drawn to the immediacy of moments, underpinned by enduring narratives, Sophia's fluid expressive paintings explores the flux and balance in the nature of all things: The freedom of the air and solidity of the soil; Of anchored stone and rhythmic water; Of human narratives written in the wild landscapes; In the sensual interplay of light and shadow. They capture an essence of the equilibrium between wild raw energy and serene stillness; chaos and harmony; and the enduring and the effervescent. Mixed media on watercolour paper Signed and inscribed Unframed 23 x 30cm / 9 x 12 inches __________________________ About The Artist Sophia Milligan is a contemporary multidisciplinary artist, exploring discourses on permanence & evanescence; the eternal, cyclical absolutes of birth & death; motherhood & childhood; and ancient immutable connections. With resonating ripples of intuition and instinct Sophia illuminates the presence of the ordinary, creating moments of sublime present. 'Born among the wild cliffs and tempestuous seas of west Cornwall, I grew with the intimate details in the twisting lanes and the intense changing light throughout the turbulent seasons. I formed a primordial connection with a deep instinctual sense of being part of the natural narrative, and wherever in the world I may be, this connectivity underpins my practice. Like the wind sculpted hawthorns and sensual coves of weather worn granite, I have been shaped by the powerful energy entwined in this ancient raw environment.’ ‘We are the stories of the journeys that came before. I weave into my work the tales of transitory circumstance; of struggle and survival; of forms and textures holding records of evolutionary millennia. I paint, I draw: with marks, mixtures, photography, words; the raw earth; the restless oceans; the whispered breeze. I work with time, and the immeasurable spaces of experience within, giving subtleties of existence a pause for contemplation. There is beauty in such poignant breaths. All moments are significant, every pebble of now forms the vast mountain of yesterday, and the great realm of tomorrow's possibilities'. Sophia has a 1st class honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in Visual Arts and World History, and a Masters Degree in Contemporary Visual Arts. Her work is held in prestigious international private collections, and exhibitions of her interactive, immersive installation, photography and mixed media works include 'Tabula Rasa', London; 'Superlative', Plymouth; 'Transition', Newlyn; The Eden Project, Cornwall; The European Parliament, Brussels; Kew Gardens, London; and 'The Cameraless Film Festival', Chicago...

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