Nine large sheets of glass rested on short aluminum cylinders just above
the terrazzo flooring of Galerie UQO. They appeared to hover around the
perimeter of the space. The panes were painted in Yu's signature brushed oil,
each composed of two bands flanking a central square. Essentially, they are
square paintings on rectangular supports, articulated in a restrained range
of matte blacks, greys and clear glass, creating varying degrees of transparency.
Each "non-painting painting," as Yu calls them, is a distinct combination
expressing a relational individuality. Together they conjure the in-between
of above and below, demarcated by a membrane of glass.
Yu shifts our physical experience of painting from parallel to perpendicular,
resituating our verticality and undermining our hierarchical gaze. In this
installation, Yu folded space on the horizontal plane; her paintings held the
weight of the air above while framing and revealing the space underneath.
They expanded upwards and extend below, marked by their shadows. Yu has
made the perceptual illusion of space tangible.
In winter, the blue grey of the Kitchissippi River mirrors the grey blue
of the sky. The clouds are brought down to the water's surface, evoking
the refrain of Taqralik Partridge's poem "Sea Woman": "I, I, bring the clouds
to the ground I I, I am always t raveling down." Yu's marks on glass are
similarly reflective. There is balance and precariousness, solidity and
emptiness, confidence and doubt. Yu is as articulate in painting as the river
is ancient.
She also makes evident the fragility and danger of these suspended flat
glass paintings. Traversing this determinedly horizontal installation, we become
aware that we need to simultaneously care, be careful, and take care. Yu's
ability to parse fine and poignant perceptual distinctions reveals her as highly
attuned to power dynamics, and each pane becomes, in turn, a sensitive and
resonating membrane through which to perceive.
I sense the impossible work of mourning in these works, mourning as
a reflexive process in which the artist's subjectivity repeatedly appears and
disappears; like her, we move between subject and reflection. Yu is coming
to terms with her position as a painter committed to the language of
abstraction in this space in which she may or may not have been invited,
may not be unwelcome and may never be able to belong. Her paintings
are held in a superstratum, perhaps superfluous, connected yet uprooted,
parallel to the solidity of the floor, but breakable, removable. This, she
suggests, is her state of continual unbelonging: "jinny yu perpetual guest"
are the words that greet us as we exit.