Elliot & Yellow

Y: what is the problem you think about most of the time?

E: When to stop.

Y: what do you think is the most important specialty of an artist?

E: Artists are responsible for translating fleeting experience into more concrete objects.

Y: What kind of person do you want to be in the future?

E: Successful, happy, passionate.

Y: why is the exhibition named "向"?

E: Discussing the variety of definitions of the word access was the starting point to this work.  As people living in Shanghai with limited abilities to read Chinese characters, we took interest in their compositional components such as when they looked like a door or box to us.  Not knowing how to define these characters outside of our conversations and visual interests, we decided that the experience of seeing something yet being held at a distance from it was an interesting basis for painting-especially considering the relationship between abstraction and the use of geometrical shapes to express focused ideas i.e. the way they’re used in Chinese writing.  Seeing Chinese characters as both abstract visual symbols and define-able pictograms led us paint and photograph different aspects of the city particularly emphasizing and abstracting symbols that represented access.  We forged a union between the looseness of the painted gesture and the exacting quality of digitally printed photography.  Through the use of taping and stenciling the canvas during both painting and printing and intentionally distorting the digital print process, we inverted these tropes to distort the division between them.  The resulting paintings allow for multifaceted readings.  We wish for the viewer to experience the combined push and pull of abstract compositional appreciation while focusing on the role of access, in its many different forms, at times limiting and other times expanding.

Y: what kind of spirit do you want to bring to the audience in this exhibition?

E: The spirit of the work is informed by the aesthetics and atmosphere of contemporary Shanghai in its current state of flux, construction and change.

Y: what’s the difference in experience of exhibiting in Shanghai and other cities?

E: There is a role of ‘place’ that plays a foundational role in the production of a work; directly in terms of the gallery space and indirectly in terms of the city and time that certain works are made.   Shanghai, and by extension China, has influenced our work by the affordability of materials and speed of their availability.  At the same time, there are real differences between the quality of materials available and the ease with which they’re organized.  While all of these factors influence the development of the work, there are some factors which influence the reception of the work.  The appreciation of art is a growing phenomenon in Shanghai.  Traditionally viewed as a financial center the identity of Shanghai is changing by the moment and becoming seen by artists as somewhere more ideal than other cities in China that experience the negative result of industry and coal burning.  Although the number of artists, museums, and galleries in this city pales in comparison to other cities in China, we see it as an ideal place to exhibit.  In contrast, the experience of exhibiting in cities outside of China varies depending on their individual vibe.  Having said all this, it’s important to note that with today’s globalized world, and the increasing influence of the digital hand on artwork, certain works of art and the resulting practices that make them aim for a non-localized global identity.