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YU Youhan |
YU Youhan
Born in Shanghai in 1943.
Graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in 1973, taught at the Shanghai Academy of Arts and Crafts from 1973 to 2003. Currently lives and works in Shanghai.
Yu Youhan¡¯s early paintings were influenced by the French impressionists. In the 1980s he began experimenting with abstract painting and at the end of 1984 he began to seek a more pure form, using dots, lines and circles in his compositions in order to reach the realm that Laozi alluded to with his ¡°shapeless elephant¡± metaphor. This concept evolved into his ¡°circle¡± series of paintings, in which the artist attempted to ¡°take na vet¨¦ and knowledge, tranquility and vividness, equilibrium and variation, possession and lacking, and unify such diametrically opposed things.¡± Through this series, the artist hoped to express a kind of idealized view of the universe. Using dots and lines extending into a circling motion Yu Youhan revealed an infinite sense of life, achieving one of the highest points in abstract painting during the ¡¯85 New Wave. After 1988, Yu Youhan began to make the transition towards a pop art style.
