Yongqi Tang’s The Open Venus, exhibited at Latitude Gallery, is a compelling examination of mythology, bodily transformation, and personal resilience. Her newest series of paintings, drawings and collages reinterpret the myth of Venus, and contrast the Goddess’s idealized beauty with the brutal and grotesque origins of her conception. Drawing from her own experience with scoliosis surgery, Tang presents her figures as both vulnerable and resilient, inviting her viewers to see the the body not merely as a physical vessel, but as a symbolic terrain of regeneration. The Open Venus underscores the inseparable link between the pain of recovery, and the enduring hope for renewal.
Tang confronts Botticelli’s serene portrayal of Venus by unraveling the Godesses's violent origins detailed in Greek mythology—born from the blood and sperm of Uranus, after Cronus severed his genitals and cast them into the sea. Contrasting soft, flowing lines with jagged, fragmented edges to depict the goddess as a vulnerable, visceral being breaking free, Tang has evidently shifted away from the themes that were present in her previous solo-show Lullaby (exhibited at Jupiter in 2023), which centered on 17th-century Chinese ghost tales and the mythic qualities of the Middle Ages.
While Lullaby invoked a world of moralistic fables drawn from Chinese literati, The Open Venus observes Western art’s timeline, and its pertinent painterly devices used to depict particular versions of Venus — the Goddess of all matters concerning love, and the ultimate character of vulnerability, power and divine beauty. Tang's exploration reveals her interest in transforming traditional allegories—those originally steeped in social and moral codes—into mirrors reflecting the turbulence of the present day.
“Sometimes we idealize so much that we neglect and sometimes proactively conceal the imperfections of reality. I empathize with the version of Venus who was emerging from the blood. I imagined her breaking from the castrated testicles, and struggling like a baby chick.” - Yongqi Tang, 2024
