At Yu Yu’s solo exhibition, we find in her artistic language that the structure and rhythm of nature are completely reinterpreted. It is just like the rhythm floating within the lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 which direct the viewers to observe the cycle of time and the continuation of life. Art becomes not just a visual expression but a questioning of how creatures become living life in orderly forms. Time is captured within the lines of light in Yu Yu’s art, and life continues to shine in a new form of artistic language.
Yu Yu’s art is based on the refined and simple language derived from the Gongbi style and structure. She reeled off the vertical line of raw silk from silk texture, and used the raw silk reeled off to embroider the shape of moth on the back of the silk texture. Yu Yu also applied the colors on the silk texture using Gongbi style. The materialism of silk is therefore given a new form of life from the process of dissembling and reorganization, which replays the life cycle of the moth, and redefines the transformation of the essence of life which constructs the implied cycle of previous and present lives.
Yu Yu’s artwork combines the non-material technique of reeling off raw silk, embroidery and Gongbi painting. Through applying a contemporary notion to reconstruct the traditional technique, she has created a unique visual perception full of tension, reflecting the deep connection among materials, technique and the meaning of life. Her unique works thus present to us a new possibility for art to bridge traditional and contemporary arts.
Dandeli Art Center
November 22, 2025
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
