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Without Boundaries: Art by Wu Yang

This was one of the first few statements Wu Yang made after greeting me at Fang Art gallery, where she is holding a solo exhibit. It’s a profound statement, and the title of her latest series of paintings. 

This type of directness and introspection so early in our initial meeting is an unusual experience, especially from a seemingly demure and petite woman like Beijing-based Wu. But after spending some time talking with her, and learning about her art, it’s clear that she is an artist who creates to realize her personal imaginations and experiences. At the same time, she hopes to use her creations to allow us to realize our own creative process understanding. 

Wu was born in Anhui. She has been painting since she was 10 years old. She has also been a post-graduate lecturer at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. Her art have so far been collected by China Nanjing Art Museum, Japanese Eastern Art Academy and individuals and companies in Hong Kong, India, United Kingdom and Australia. I would hesitate to call her an abstract artist because in viewing her art and understanding her creative process, one will find that it would be too limiting to put her in a specific category.

Unlimited and unbounded is how Wu likes to describe her work and her creative process. “Why paint just on canvas?” she asked herself. When she was given some photography paper by a friend, she started to experiment and was pleasantly surprised by the way the paper reacted to the acrylics she used to paint. Wu Yang also felt as an artist, she should create and at the same time be relevant to the evolving culture. Wu was quite impressed by the clean effect of the paint on the photography paper, and also how thin the painting can be once mounted. She liked that and likened her paintings to the thinning of the Apple laptop models. 

Wu has been working on her Public Space series for about 18 months and considers them her best work thus far. Very quickly one will notice there are no specific titles or descriptions for the paintings. In the catalogue, the acrylic paintings are only listed with the series’ title, Public Space, and an assigned number.

“The places are familiar to all of us, such as bars, shopping malls, exhibition centres, the Millennium Monument, but the experiences and the way we see them may be different.” Wu said. “I left them untitled because I don’t want to limit the viewer's imagination or obstruct the way they see some things by telling them what they should see. There is more than one answer.”

It made total sense to me. In Public Space, I first saw it being a counter in a bar. After walking by that painting again, having a second glance, a man’s figure suddenly came into view. I somehow understood a little more of how Wu Yang may have felt when she discovered some of the way the paint interacted with the photographic paper. Even though she may have intended to paint something specific related to what was on her mind, Wu wants her viewers to have their own opinions about what they see and feel through her creations. Watching and listening to people's varied reaction to her art is one of Wu’s joys of being an artist.

Wu has an English name. She calls herself Corona Wu. She says people often ask if she took the name from the famous Mexican beer by the same name. If you know Wu, then you will know the answer is clearly, “ No!” She liked the name because it means “crown” in Spanish. It is related to royalty and that is why she liked the name. Having been crowned with artistic talent, Wu finds herself consumed with the thought of how to bring out the best work she can create. As a professional artist, her days are increasingly filled with many activities other than painting. That is a challenge and also a motivation for her to set aside specific times to paint and create. About five hours a day is reserved for painting. But even when not painting or creating, the creative process continues: “People like to ask what I am inspired by and who my role models are,” Wu said. “I can’t say just one thing. I could be cooking or walking through the mall, I often get an image of what I want to create through my paintings.”

Keeping the creative process pure and ever-transforming is important to Wu. She looks back at her work and can see there has been dramatic improvement from when she first started to paint professionally. This also applies to her subject matter, her thought processes and her choice of painting sizes. The progress also reflects her visible confidence and assertiveness. “What I express and how I express life through art are the most valuable parts of my work.” Wu Yang says passionately. “There is truly no importance in my art if they are not original and created from my experiences and thoughts and feelings.” Even though her current series are paintings which are all about eliciting difference of opinions, there should be agreement in the values Wu cherishes for upholding the need for people to be creative. There was definitely much more to talk about with Wu, and there is much more she wants to talk about. Finally, I asked Wu: if there were no limits, what dream would she want to see come true?

“No limit? Then without a doubt, since a little girl, I dreamt of having a set of wings Ah, the things I could see and experience….” Wu sighed.