Chair · Theater Print Series

Yang Jiaying
Gu Yue
Master of Fine Arts
Painting Practice and Theory
2025-02-20
Color
Landscape
Color Woodblock Printing
This woodcut series constructs surreal theaters probing humanity-nature-civilization dialectics. Three tableaux: marine life glides through empty theater skies; floating windows cradle absent memories; botanical invasions reconfigure chair networks. Lacerating incisions transform viewers from spectators to narrative agents—confronting civilizational rifts through voyeuristic perspectives. As vitality permeates order, symbiotic triad reconfigures in material-illusion tensile fields.
  • Theater of Light Exploring the relationship between reality and fantasy, humanity and nature through woodcut prints. Marine creatures soar across the sky of an empty theater, their surreal combination defying spatial logic, while the void stage behind crimson curtains forms a visual focal point. This tranquil scene cultivates a sense of suspense for an uncommenced performance, inviting viewers to transform from spectators into participants. Through imagination filling the emptiness, they explore unseen dimensions beyond reality within this immersive theatrical space.
  • Theatre of Chairs Constructing a chair theater through woodcut prints, the arrangement of seats metaphorically maps social scenarios and interpersonal networks. Vegetation burgeoning from chairbacks breaches pictorial frames, staging the contested dynamics between nature and civilization. Empty chairs embody the corporeal memories of absent bodies, while creeping flora reconfigures boundaries between public and private spheres. Through woodcut incisions, everyday objects are transfigured into a dialectical field of power and wildness, compelling viewers to redefine symbiosis between humanity and objects, nature and civilization within this liminal space where reality and illusion intertwine.
  • Fluttering Curtains Staged Phantoms Exploring the relationship between humanity and nature, and the boundary between reality and illusion through woodcut prints. Floating windows form the theatrical nucleus, where drifting curtains trace the flow of time and space, while wooden chairs hint at the human presence of absent figures, and distant mountains extend into surreal dimensions. Dynamic elements and static objects collaboratively construct this dramatic space, inviting viewers to become active participants through voyeuristic perspectives. Amidst entwined foliage and layered topography, the work triggers immersive contemplation on existential essence and societal metaphors.