chiang yomei | london | u.k.

Chiang Yomei:

Born in 1961, Taipei, Taiwan, to a Chinese-Russian father and a Chinese-German mother, Yomei studied art and literature at Skidmore College, upstate New York, after a traditional Chinese education in Taiwan. As a child in Taiwan she studied traditional Chinese landscape painting with the contemporary master Hu Nian-Tzu, life drawing with Li Der, and watercolour with Wang Lan. She began writing poetry at the age of ten. Later she moved to Germany to study the German language in Lüneburg and Göttingen. In 1981, she moved again, to England, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in the History and Theory of Art and English Literature from the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1984. At Kent, Yomei studied under the eminent modern art historian and critic, Dr. Stephen Bann.

After Kent, Yomei continued to pursue the field of art history at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, specialising in Chinese painting and ceramics, studying respectively under the tutelage of Dr. Roderick Whitfield and Dr. Rosemary Scott, both eminent scholars in their fields.

From 1989, Yomei began practising Fine Art in a more concentrated capacity, producing paintings, drawings, collages, photography, installations, performances, poetry, and a collection of short stories. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree from Winchester School of Art in 1994. A devoted Buddhist practitioner, she also nurtures a strong interest in spiritual and esoteric philosophies as well as modern physics, the pursuit of which, along with her great love of music have become inextricably linked to her creative work. A multi-media artist, she is currently working on an artist’s book based on her poetry and a multi-media project in Asia, “Crossing”.

Yomei Chiang lives in London with her husband and young daughter.
Her work can be found in public and private collections in Europe and Asia.

Artist’s Statement:

“Art is not a singular activity. The artist only begins the work; it is always the viewer who completes it. As each viewer must bring a unique set of values and conditions to the work, we cannot know how a work will be received each time. Life itself is continually in flux; nothing is ever fixed. Between dualities there is a profound and luminous space that is free of expectation and longing, of a linear concept of time. It is in this 'in-between space' that we encounter our true faces, where we meet each other on a more fundamental, less contrived level.

I try to evoke a sense of this space between form and formlessness, manifestation and dissolution, in all of my work. Unhinged from rigid points of reference, this space is full of freedom and possibilities. A lack of strict definition becomes in itself a kind of riddle, a principle of communication.

My work is concerned with the impermanent nature of relative reality. No phenomenon has a reality independent of its surroundings and inherent conditions; all relative phenomena are composite and subject to a host of conditions for their manifestation. Things - ideas, emotions, furniture, buildings, forests, the climate, you and I - come apart when the conditions that inform their existence disperse. They are all temporary. One could say that the concept of 'magic' is not strange at all, for anything beholden to the concept of time is in fact an illusion.

Our habitual patterns urge us to reject this view. We want things/life to be solid and unchanging; we want labels and definitions. We crave certainty out of a fear of being without identity. Yet we are no less transient than shifting sands in a desert storm, for there is no substance to relative reality whatsoever.

The irony is this 'unfixed' reality becomes apparent only through being still, through understanding the workings of our restless minds. The most an artist or poet can do is to try to evoke something of this ephemeral nature, because you can never quite capture it. You wouldn't want to - for the moment you think you've caught it, it dies. This fragility, the elusiveness of identity, of thoughts, memories and emotions, moves me deeply. It is perhaps the main impetus behind my work.

For me, making art and writing are a way of living and thinking about life. In a way, the work is a spiritual diary, an ever-evolving map of an inner landscape. I hope my work can transcend personal and cultural boundaries, to connect with the viewer-participant on a deeper level, and achieve a symbiosis brought about through a shared capacity for meditation.” Chiang Yo Mei, Yu Shan Tsao Tang,
London 2007

 

Exhibitions:

“Five Young Contemporary Chinese Artists”,
Shun Lee Palace, courtesy of Eastlake Gallery, New York, September 1994

“Selected Graduates, a Year On”,
Stansell Gallery, Taunton, June 1995
Shin Kong Art Museum, Taipei, September 1995

Christie’s Contemporary Chinese Art Sale, Taipei, Sept. 1995
Shin Kong Art Museum, Taipei, June 1996

Christie’s Contemporary Chinese Art Sale, June 1996
Shin Kong Art Museum, Taipei, September 1999

Christie’s Important 20th Century Chinese Art &
Impressionist & 20th Century Western Art Sale, October 1999

Shin Kong Art Museum, Taipei, Sept. 2001
Christie’s 20th Century Chinese Art Sale, Taipei, October 2001

“Panorama of a New Generation”,
Bernard Chauchet', London, December 2001

“Olympia Art Fair 2002”
Olympia Art Fair, London, January 2002

“Christie’s 20th Century Chinese Art Sale”,
Hong Kong, April 2002

“On Board the Lotus Express”, solo show
Gallery Maya, London, December 2007

“The Golden party: Transformation and Alchemy”,
Gallery 100, Taipei, November-December 2008

Literature:

“Drawing Out Buddha Nature: An Interview with Chiang Yo Mei”,
Ming Sherng Pao, Arts Section, Wed., 26/7/95

“Chiang Yo Mei - Rhythm and Light - A Journey of the Soul on Canvas”,
TV Family Weekly, 7-13/8/95

“From One Space into Another/ The Journey of Chiang Yo Mei”,
Central Daily News, 11/9/95

“Chiang YoMei to display work at Shin Kong Museum”,
China News, 13/9/95

“Two Chiangs in the Saleroom”,
Art of Collection, 11/1995 issue

“Drawing out Buddha Nature” (repeat),
Overseas Scholars' Monthly, 7/1995 issue

“The Creation of Art and Life – Chiang Yo Mei Interview”,
Arch Magazine, Oct. 1999 issue

“Editorial”
Asian Art News, Nov./Dec 2007




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