HdM GALLERY is participating in the “2024 Asia Now Art Fair” from October 17 to 20, showcasing the artist Zhao Yinou’s solo show, curated by Loic Le Gall. We are pleased to welcome you on our booth H10.
Booth H10
"Woodcutting is essentially a battle between the carving knife and the wood. During the creation process, the obstructed force is a form of constant destruction. It is, in fact, an internal struggle within oneself."
"It forces you to slow down during the process. You can clearly feel what confuses you—your hesitations, doubts, and even anger."
If Zhao Yinou’s most well-known series, “The Rehabilitation Project” (2004-2013), represents a detachment and observation of pain, then her subsequent series, “I AND I” (2014-2018) and “WE” (2018-2022), reflect a gradual shift from external observation to self-awareness. The images of the artist and her family increasingly emerge in her works. It is also during this period that Zhao Yinou began to use wood panels as one of her essential mediums for the first time.
Zhao Yinou, 37.2019.W, mixed media on wood, 45x30cm, 2019
Zhao Yinou uses wood carving to convey a sense of conflict and obstruction. The cutting on wood are immortalized as visible lines of dynamic force, transformed into a “debate” between her action and hesitation. This process causes a slowdown in creation while keeping the artist consistently mindful. Confusion, anger, and fear—all sentiments are captured within the carving, transforming into an inward gaze of self-realization when the wood board is displayed in front of us. Those radiating lines collectively bring us into the "destruction" on the wooden surface, forcing us to confront our inner fears. It is at this moment, everything that makes us feel uncomfortable becomes the core concept of the image presented on the wood.
The mark shares a nature of synecdochic pain with the scar. This metaphorical embodiments unfold through random lines, aiming to articulate an indescribable struggle deep within our subconscious. Those marks cannot be erased or removed from the wood but instead they outline illusional shapes through repetitive motion. Although we may vaguely capture the shadows of figures within the work, it is impossible to accurately identify their appearance or gender. Almost ghost-like, intertwining shapes permeate between the splattered paint and the carving, sometimes even confronting each other. The random lines create a dizzying effect, just as the figures are struggle to emerge from the shadows, taking the first step toward self-healing in their ongoing battle with the erosion of darkness. Just as Dostoevsky’s description of Prince Myshkin’s pain inThe Idiot (1868), “amid the sorrow and oppressive night, our vitality transforms into the aura with an ecstatic and prayerful fusion in the highest synthesis of life.”[1]Zhao Yinou was born in 1972 in Shenyang. She now lives and works in Beijing.
Zhao Yinou, 20.2019-24.W, mixed media on wood, 45x30 cm, 2019-2024
Loic Le Gall
Her works on wood do not seem to fit into a classical tradition of Chinese painting and essentially recall the history of European art. And for good reason, the daughter of a professor at a fine arts school, she was immersed in a creative universe and was especially passionate about painting in all its forms. She developed a great erudition of Western historical movements from Etruscan figuration to the Renaissance to the painting of Bacon or Cézanne. The forms she deploys could be reminiscent of those of mediumistic artists like the drawings of Victor Hugo to those of Georgiana Houghton – the artist was then a “simple ferryman” between the medium and greater forces.
In her “We” series presented here, we are obviously thinking of Zamiatine’s work – Zhao Yinou records emotions and energies that the art historian Su Wei describes, in 2022, as a kind of diary, a personal journal. The image is an unreworked result, a kind of immediacy of full consciousness. The artist prefers to repeat a motif or a form on other media until satisfaction is obtained and uses the word “rehabilitation”, from the medical vocabulary.
