Yi Lian
Born in 1987 in Yichun, Jiangxi, Graduated from the New Media ArtDepartment of China Academy of Art in 2009 with a B.A, obtained M.A from theSchool of Intermedia Art of China Academy of Art in 2012, Currently lives andworks in Hangzhou.
Yi Lian’s creation focuses on video art, rife with a sense of theatricality in his work: let it be the artificial lighting, scenes under the grim overcast, temporary encounter, affords him the freedom to disconnect from reality, so he could make space for imagination.
As a “realistic dreamer”, Yi Lian’s early works focus on how to emancipate the body from the “person”, and the ways in which to undermine conventional relationships between the self and the others. Among his works, the alienated body becomes reborn in nature, and animals are given the same status as human beings. A sensibility for warmth and light is prevalent and recurrent in Yi Lian’s works, whether bright or dim, close or far, cool or warm, these atmospheres have engendered intimacy that implies for the subtlety in relationships between people, people and objects, and people to the world.
In 2019, Points Center for Contemporary Art (Points) cooperate with S-AIR, , a non-profit art institution in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, to hold the artist exchange residency program. After the screening of S-AIR and Points committees, we are pleased to announce that Yi Lian (China) stood out from many excellent candidates, selected for this residency program.
Yi Lian will travel to Hokkaido, Japan on October 25 for creative and cultural exchanges. After the completion of the residency, the artist will return to Points to share his life in Sapporo, bringing different perspectives and practical experiences to the public.
Yi Lian Blank Filler - "practice"
In Sapporo's resident creation, I call it "practice", which is a kind of return visit observation on some uncertain things or conceptual things in my mind. At the same time, in the specific regional environment of Hokkaido, we can get more accurate perception of energy change. The three works in the exhibition are only a part of thinking, and there are still parts in progress that have not yet been exhibited. In the Myth Practice, we seem to link up the association of an inherent myth story visually, but at the same time, the consciousness returns to a specific person and becomes unclear. But the Fable practice returns to some kind of fable story text in the match picture, but at the same time has a little strange feeling. In the Warm Babies, the common heating materials in life are transformed to simulate the extinction of life, the transfer and dissipation of energy, which is the alienation of the properties of the materials themselves.
Myth Practice
Single screen video, color, sound, 4K, 10 minutes 36 seconds, 2019
This video looks a little like the scene of Sisyphus pushing a stone up the mountain in ancient Greek mythology, but the stone was replaced by a snowball that grew larger and larger, and the pusher had no mythological power, and was exhausted as soon as it reached the mountainside. And gave up. Snowballer is Umi, the manager of S-AIR, she discusses her career in voiceover.
Fable practice
Photography painting, black and white printing, black signature pen, 60x35cm, 8 sheets, 2019
In this set of black and white photography about the woods in the snow scene, the artist painted many weird images in the middle, as if we are watching each and every unknown fable story happening.
Warm Babies
Installation, handmade paper, warm paste liner powder, 300x125cm, 2019
Heating pad is widely used as a convenience product for temporary cold protection in winter, but when I directly translate it into "Warm Babies" and say to Japanese friends, they don't know what it is. I think " Take the words too literally" is also a kind of creativity, so I poured out the powder in the warm paste to form a human figure that looks like lying on the floor. These pictures from the Internet found images of those killed in some accident scenes. During the first few hours of this work, transpirational hot air can be observed, and then slowly cooled.
