Time Feast: Yanyan Huang

There exist many pieces of academic journals and press describing Yanyan Huang’s works, enormous but intimate, lyrical and poetic, classical western and traditional Chinese influences, etc. I couldn’t help but imagine what it was like to create such a large volume of pieces, each granting its audience a unique but unified incredible visual experience and, moreover, what it was like to have each of them be viewed and reviewed through rigorous lenses. After getting to know Yanyan and her works, I invite you to LATITUDE Gallery to show you a witty selection that focuses on her relationships with her works and with LATITUDE – titled Time Feast. The exhibition will be on view from Sep. 7th to Oct 7th, and the eponymous Artsy online showroom will be on view till the end of October. 

Organic encounters within her canvases and across the architecture of her works are threads that bind and coalesce into “Time Feast”. Yanyan puts it as “It’s like you are blind, trying to remember the future” as if she did not physically put down the strokes and color blocks by her own will but instead, found them floating and dreaming in the air, channeling their evocative spirits for their own ends. The relationship between Yanyan to her works is not merely that of a creator and her creations but rather a pair of parallel garden paths, crisscrossing when fate  allows. Each stroke and mark on paper or canvas function as artifacts left behind, on the path where Yanyan discovers her works. For us viewers, to look at the works feels like gazing at footprints in ever-shifting sands where the moments we share with the works are more eternal than the works themselves. To hold a piece that recognizes these moments is like obtaining a souvenir for the uncapturable experience Yanyan offered. 

This reading of Yanyan’s work is not the only reason for putting together this show. We seized the opportunity to share her works with you because there is such a lovely parallel between her individual journey and her encounter with LATITUDE. We’ve known Yanyan’s works before meeting her in person. Yet, we never would have imagined that – on a banal weekday afternoon – Yanyan would waltz, unannounced, into our space after her haircut in Manhattan’s Chinatown. It is always one of these little chance moments that confirm that fortuitous stories of New York in film and television are not groundlessly made. 

It is wondrous how time has brought Yanyan to her works, to us, and eventually to you. The elements of time concentrate and evolve in Yanyan’s works as nodes. In these works, the strokes seamlessly flow, one after another, crossing into and overlapping each other, where one can easily imagine Yanyan’s hand gestures moving invisibly above the paper. On the other hand, like spirits of time, the various textures and transparency of the strokes whisper emotive clues about the timing of their creations to their viewers. The components dance with each other as if they are destined to be where they are now. 

Almost as an attempt to capture the essence of time, Yanyan’s works post questions about the passage of time, the linkages between perceptions of times from different individuals, and the sensations of ever-lasting shortages of time. Upon audiences’ gazes, the textures and colors concentrate various forms of “slowness” and “fastness” into colorful and diverse visual experiences. To look at the grand pictures of elements swirling and miring with each other, audiences are ought to be surrounded by millions of questions and answers on the grand topic of time. How can one get enough time when they feel that they are privileged by time to encounter all the unique and lucky nuances in their life when they are immersed in such captivating adventures that Yanyan created?

I dislike the word destiny, though – too strong and determined. The three distinct syllables are tightly knitted together and would impatiently slip out of my lips whenever mentioned. It does not reflect Yanyan’s works and her relationships with LATITUDE in my eyes. Sitting in Chinatown writing about our story, I think the Chinese word for destiny, “缘(Yuan)”, is much gentler and has a more fitting “chill” vibe to describe this show. The word can be understood as whether something were to happen or not, it is because of the presence of “缘” or lack thereof. In traditional sayings, as corny as it is, if there are “缘” between individuals, they will eventually gather no matter how far they are from each other. I’m more than delighted that you and I hold the “缘” so that I can share Yanyan’s Time Feast with you. 

Curation and text by shuang cai