Ann Yan (born 1998) is an artist currently living and working in London. Yan was born in Beijing and grew up in northwest London with her family. Having completed her Bachelor degree in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2020, Yan’s practice speaks to globalism and investigates the untranslatability of universal human experience and specific East Asian and British tropes through oil painting, sculpture, and mixed media collage to transcend cultural relativism and form her own hermeneutical system of a pan-cultural ouroboros.
The “Mayfly” series represents a deeply personal investigation of multicultural identity and the power of symbols. The more abstract background embodies the optical sensations of the human eye that provide a conduit to more ethereal discoveries. Yan uses this as a medium to channel thoughts and emotions, experimenting with the multifaceted aspects of perception. Yan depicts nebula clouds that preserve the visual memory when one’s eyes are closed - a concatenation of colours and floaters in motion against an eigengrau background. Objects hover aimlessly among these clouds, integrating with her own presence and subjective experience. Occasionally, these subjects will transform into doors and windows opening onto hypothetical spaces. These intricate mis-en-scenes ccreate interconnected habitats, weaving memories into a tapestry of the mind.
For Yan, embracing a Maximalist aesthetic does not entail haphazard accumulation, but rather discovering the delicate balance of multiple choices. Yan’s works have been featured in exhibitions at Leyden Gallery in London, as well as Arkila Space and SXS Gallery in Shanghai. Yan has also recently participated as an artist-in-residence at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, and a soon-to-be candidate at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.
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© 2023 all images: Ann Yan