Photography & Notes by Lonsdale Gallery

Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto presents Where Two Rivers Meet (兩河交匯處), a two-floor solo exhibition by award-winning artist and Fête Chinoise featured artist: Xiaojing Yan 閆曉靜. From intricate sculptures and installations that are monumental in scale to intimate sized works on paper, this exhibition explores the connection between the natural world and modes of cultural exchange. Yan’s artistic practice brings traditional Chinese materials and techniques with contemporary aesthetics and presentation much like the current adjoining two bodies of water.

Employing unconventional materials such as, freshwater pearls, lingzhi mushrooms, or pine needles – Yan draws on these reoccurring motifs to explore how forces of nature, inherent within traditional Chinese art, transcends culture. Trained in both the East and the West, Yan has cultivated a distinctive artistic vision that highlights what it means to thrive between two cultures.

In Spirit Cloud, thousands of luminous freshwater pearls are suspended from clear filaments; evoke otherworldly cloud formations and scholar’s stones. Created from 33,000 freshwater pearls, which reference the shape of lingzhi mushrooms and smoke, explores themes of duality, and the tension between ephemerality and permanence. Clouds formed by thousands of shimmering dots materialize like a three dimensional pointillist painting free floating in space. In Cloud Cell, over 13,000 freshwater pearls are arranged into a sumptuous curvilinear form. The shape references scholar’s stones, an object of reverence and a symbol of wisdom in China; and mushrooms clouds through its spectral qualities, which imbue it with disarming sense of destruction and beauty. Yan continues to use lingzhi in various works including painting.

In her Naturally Natural series, the artist takes on an exploration of duality and chance. Diaphanous networks of fine lines blossom across the surface of paper to create elegant expressive compositions that abstract images recalling root systems, nerve clusters, rivers, and coastlines. Combining the organic properties of the sumi ink with contemporary synthetic, yupo paper, Chinese artistic traditions and Western abstract expressionism; Yan highlights and reflects on the importance that hybridity plays in her practice.

Yan’s work is a celebration of the transformative qualities of art – its ability to express bold new visions and communicate cross-culturally. The artist approaches the creative process with a joyful sense of curiosity, allowing new ideas and forms to reveal themselves during the act of creation. This synergy between her chosen materials becomes an expressive devise that the artist uses to reaffirm and revisit her own identity as a first generation Canadian. She explains, “as an artist migrating from China to North America, both my identity and my work pass through the complex filters of different countries, languages, and cultural expectations.” Likewise, Yan’s work can be seen as a visual expression of the confluence of two cultures; when combined they become a catalyst for inciting a dialogue about sense of place, identity, and temporality.

Don’t miss her solo exhibition which begins on November 16.

Exhibition Dates: November 16 - December 20, 2019
Venue: Lonsdale Gallery
410 Spadina Road
Toronto ON
M5P 2W2