Studio visit: Huang Yuxing
The Beijing-based artist on the studio as a place of purification, and why he believes ‘fluorescent is the colour of our generation’
‘To me, the studio is a place where our minds and desires can be purified,’ explains Chinese contemporary artist Huang Yuxing, whose work is offered in our Asian 20th Century & Contemporary Art (Evening Sale) on 26 November. ‘There are many ideas and desires throughout our lives. Through painting, these can be transformed into a sensible and legitimate outcome that is accepted and understood.’
The artist, who graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and now lives in Beijing, says he likes to work in ‘a chaotic state’, describing his practice of opening pots of pigment and letting them sit for longer than a week in order to reduce the viscosity of the paint. His signature oval motif, he explains, sometimes represents human faces, sometimes swirls, and sometimes bubbles. ‘They exist in the same scene in different ways, which is an important clue in my artwork.’
He argues that ‘fluorescent colour is the colour of our generation. There is no such colour system in traditional easel paintings. It is special, like a kind of vigorous vitality being compressed or unleashed. This was the colour and the feeling that I needed.’