A New York and Kyoto-based artist Yu-Whuan Wang studied contemporary painting and sculpture, and completed an independent art research project, at the Kyoto University of Education, Japan with Shimamoto Shozo, a pioneer of Gutai. In her early studies with Shozo, Yu-Whuan found herself freed to explore an open spirit of making art instead of drawing on a canvas. Yu-Whuan also studied with the painters, Mr. Shen Zhe Zai and Mr. Zeng Pei Yao, as well as sculptor Yamamoto Kakuzi.
Yu-Whuan received a “MURASAKI” award for the 47th Kyoto Exposition and had major public and selected exhibitions internationally and in the U.S. including the New York Historical Society and Taller Boricua Gallery. She was invited by the Ga-un Sculpture group for a special guest solo exhibit in the Kyoto Art Museum, with solo shows at Ando Tadao Architecture Ayabe City Plaza, and other museums and galleries, along with outdoor exhibitions including The Global Warming Prevention in Kyoto Convention celebration. She served as a director of design in Taiwan and director of PhilosophyBox gallery in New York and currently a member of the Kyoto Sculptor Association.
Yu-Whuan’s wide-ranging art explores the relationship between nature and culture in her sculpture, paintings, drawings, photographs, and installations.
When making such installations with twigs and branches, she treats the installation like a dance with the process of consciousness and the unconscious. Rather than focusing on the exact technical process of sketching or designing, she often immerses herself in the world of the picture or work, along with a sense of there being no time.
This exhibition is about standing in or dancing with the installation, taking it all and writing it down, recalling it, and existing. The installation encounters and grafts the touch of time. We see the mind at work with the visuality of deep surfaces, the specific branches of action and presence which creatively arise, one way or another, in our encounters with ‘ZERO’ — an element in nature, nothing but the key to everything. Artist Yu-Whuan’s use of the color blue brings a compelling elemental aspect to this exhibit. The color blue in her work is an aspect of a deep mind mixed with time and a spirit. It brings a deft touch to potent human passions and dilemmas, in a manner that is akin to sunlight on a tree.
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