At the age of 8, she had the dream of becoming an artist; at the age of 18, one of her sketches was selected for the cover of the national art textbook and became famous in one fell swoop. However, after getting married and having children, she put down her paintbrush, picked up a diaper, and experienced five years of silence.
Her name is Yu Hong, and she has a resounding title - the eldest sister of the art circle.
Yu Hong
Yu Hong was born in Xi'an in 1966, because her mother had difficulty giving birth to her, and she was regarded as a treasure from an early age. Her mother graduated from the Central American Oil Painting Department in her early years, and later engaged in art editing, and when Yu Hong was two or three years old, she would give her a paintbrush and enlighten her.
In 1980, Yu Hong was admitted to the Attached Middle School of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and later entered the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. "David" is Michelangelo's masterpiece, as a compulsory course for students of the Academy of Fine Arts, Yu Hong, who has just entered the school, spent four weeks to paint it.
Her sketch "David" not only became the best homework in the class, but also shook the status of Xu Bing, the best student of the David Statue since the establishment of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and was rated as "the first David" and "the best David statue in the history of the Central Academy of Fine Arts" by the president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Yu Hong's "David"
In the mid-to-late 1980s, there were two main trends in domestic art: realistic painting and the "85 New Wave". Realistic painters advocate painting Tibet or going to rural painting factories, believing that the lives of remote areas and ethnic minorities are more human fireworks, which is what painters should express. 85 Artists of the Neo-Hipster School experiment with various materials or create conceptual works.
Yu Hong said that she does not belong to either of these two trends, she likes the art of communicating with people, believes that the closest thing to her is life, and pays more attention to the lives and inner experiences of young people around her in creation, such as the "She" series, which is all female close-ups.
Portrait of Red and Green
In 1994, a very special year for Yu Hong, her daughter was born and she became a mother.
The day my daughter was born, I was very impressed, I was born completely different from what I imagined, I originally imagined that she was a white and fat child, in fact, she was a purple-red, like a child of the color of internal organs, the eyes are very large, like a layer of oil, you can't see through. The doctor put her on top of me, and I kept looking at her like this and started crying, for about half an hour.
Liu Wa was born
The arrival of the daughter brought Yu Hong two feelings, "One is that life is really a miracle, and the things that were important before are no longer important; the other is that children will bring a lot of pressure, anxiety, and trivia, and the whole life will change, and the understanding and thinking of the world will also change." ”
Yu Hong said: "I will move a lot of myself backwards, first deal with the family and children's affairs, for me, this is a sense of responsibility." On the one hand, this places a limit on the time of artistic creation, but on the other hand, it also gives me a wider perspective. ”
Liu Wa is one year old
In order to be a good mother, she decided to put down the paintbrush first, and this shelf was 5 years. In these 5 years, Yu Hong freed up her time and grew up with her daughter, they went to learn horseback riding and skiing together, basically what her daughter learned, she learned.
Our generation does not have much communication with parents in adolescence, and will form a confrontation, so in the growth of children, special attention is paid to communication.
family
In 1999, Yu Hong's heart that loved art was agitated again, she picked up the brush again, and used 10 years to create uninterruptedly, completing the "Witness growth" series of works. In this series of works, she uses the method of "chronological body" to paint, using the brushwork of narrating the flow of water, imitating her own life, her own psychology and life form, and the growth process of herself and her daughter.
One of the works in the "Witnessing Growth" series is particularly important: "1996 30 Years Old", in which Yu Hong, who has a short hair and flower dress, leans on the sofa and looks tired, while the sleeping daughter is on the bed next to her. The coffee table is littered with daily necessities such as paper towels and water bottles, which inadvertently exudes a strong atmosphere of life.
"1996 At the Age of 30"
This work depicts the parent-child relationship, but also two separate individuals, while also embodying an emotion and strength.
"Growing up" is a continuous process of dreams and reality for a woman. In Yu Hong's artistic expression, this process is intertwined with personal, family, social, historical factors, but also intertwined with fantasy, hope, sensibility, reality and so on.
"Natural Selection"
On March 9, 2019, Yu Hong's large-scale solo exhibition "The Land of The Mother" was held at the Long Museum (West Bund). As one of the most high-profile female artists in China, this exhibition provides a comprehensive and in-depth display of her work, unfolding her world like a four-act drama, while presenting different periods in multiple parallel universes: "The Time of Rebirth", "The 'Portrait' Series That Runs Through Yu Hong's Artistic Career", "Half a Hundred", "Witnessing Growth".
The exhibition site of "The Land of the Mother"
Yu Hong once said in an interview: "In life, I have found many things that make people feel excited but cannot be described in words, these are stories about human kindness, estrangement, speculation, and love... Everyone was driven by it, and all kinds of stories happened in life. They became the subject of my work. ”
In her works, there are also all kinds of quiet and meticulous feelings and cares for life, emotions, behaviors, and processes as a female individual, while thinking about the meaning of women's self-existence at different stages.