Gao Yuan
Page 1 | 2 | 3 | Biography
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Born: Taipei, Taiwan
Lives: Living & working in New York & Beijing
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1997 New York Film Academy, course work
1989 University of Japan, Graduate School of Art, MFA in Photography
1987 With Miki Jun photographer course work in Japan
1985 University of Tainam, BA in fine art, Taiwan
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2010 Art Touch collection Greenwich, CT
2007 Images of Identity and Territory, Inter gallery, Beijing, China
2001 �Reflection� Taipei photo gallery, Taiwan
1995 � Tattoo Portraits� Seibu gallery, Hong Kong
1994 �Secret Identities� Elite gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
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2010- SongZoung art museum, Beijing, China
2010-Korean art culture center, Beijing, China
2009 �Au feminin� Funda��o Calouste Gulbenkian Lisboa, Portugal
2009 Spiritual themes in contemporary, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, New York
2009 The AIPAD Photography Show(Throckmorton Fine Art), New York
2009 A (re)Turn to (re)Form Mark Wolfe contemporary Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2008 Asian Contemporary Art Fair, New York
2008 Times Space gallery, 798 Beijing, China
2008 PingYao international photography festival, China
2008 Palacio consistorial de Cartagena, Spain
2008 Shanghai MoCa at Museum of Contemporary Art, China
2008 China photographer, Inter gallery. Beijing, China
2008 Sacred & Profane Water Randel gallery, NYC
2007 Classic Beauty Throckmorton Fine Art, NYC
2007 AIPAD the photography show at Throckmorton Fine Art, NYC
2006 International juried show visual arts center of New Jersey
2006 Field of vision: Beijing new art project at Gao Brothers gallery Beijing, China
2006 �History of women�s art�Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NYC
2006 �Field of vision New York� digital art show, The Lab gallery, NYC
2004 Soho photo gallery competition group show, NYC
2004 Art incubator inaugural art exhibition, Ethan Cohen gallery, NYC
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�Twelve Moons� is a series about 12 Chinese mothers, their 12 children, and the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. Greatly moved by the beauty of Italian Renaissance painting, and most especially the Madonna and Child symbolism, I sought to imbue the new China art with the same spirit. During the process of creating this work, I gradually found an understanding of the connection between the Chinese society of today and Italy of the Renaissance. The current conditions manifest the same gaps in cultural and wealth distribution between the two cultures.
I began this project with a casting call to find the best mothers and their infants to express the dichotomies of the new China society and the rapid development of the new China economy. The mothers came from distant villages all over China. Their husbands were low-wage workers in the construction sites. In Twelve Moons, the children were 3 to 8 months old, a period of the most rapid physical growth, as the new China is emerging after stunning growth.
The Chinese zodiac is a 12-year cycle. The birth-year animal is believed to be the determining factor in each person's life. The background of each photograph is a composite of several digital photographs: a "mash-up" of the new and the old China
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Work selected for international juried show Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, 2006
Winner of Soho photo gallery competition NYC work on view Oct 5-30, 2004
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Article in
Color Magazine
Black & White Magazine
October, 2009
Gao Yuan�s photographs are explorations of cultural identity and how it reveals itself on the multi-layered arts of a society, from more traditional fine art such as painting, to film, graffiti art, and even tattoos. Growing up in Taipei, Taiwan, the child of a Chinese father and Taiwanese mother, her own cultural curiosity was aroused early on. She remembers being asked the question �Are you Chinese?� �Sometimes I was confused,� she recalls, wondering why anyone would ask. Only later would she learn of the history and relationship between Taiwan and China, with their shared cultures and differing politics. Her interest in the visual arts began early. Yuan�s father was an amateur photographer, whose influence sparked her lifelong passion for photography. In high school she borrowed his camera on a whim and took some photographs for a competition. Much to her surprise she was awarded first prize. She became more confident and began photographing all the time, saving money for several years until she had enough to purchase her first camera, a Nikon.
Yuan studied art at The University of Tainam, in Taiwan, but longed to pursue a career as a professional photographer. As there were at the time no photography schools in Taiwan, she enrolled at the University of Japan. The move was a cultural shock. �I didn�t speak Japanese or English� she recalls. Undaunted, she persevered, struggling to learn a new the Japanese language and the language of photography simultaneously. �I trained very hard,� she recalls. �Darkroom, in both color and black and white; lighting, all the technical knowledge.� She was awarded an MFA in Photography in 1989. Some of her class went on to pursue careers in documentary photography, working for newspapers and magazines. Her path would be different. She had a feel for the conceptual in photography, for the idea expressed through the lens. �In the beginning,� she notes, �I did commercial work, but I always did fine art photography for myself.� The next phase of her journey took her to New York City, where she lived in East Harlem and attended The New York Film Academy in1997 learning video arts. She lived there for nearly eight years, working on her photography and supporting herself through commercial work �Being a fine art photographer is so difficult,� she says. Concept and idea are important to her. She likes work on projects rather than individual photographs, looking at a subject from a multitude of views.
In Yuan�s ongoing quest to explore identity, she recently moved to China, living in Beijing and creating short films and video as well as still photography. Not surprisingly one of her recurrent themes is how culture is shaped by the socio-political environment, and what that means for the individual. Symbols and signs appear in many of her photographs. In one earlier series of black and white photographs, Yuan was offered a unique opportunity to photograph the tattoos of Japanese and Chinese gangsters, a sub-culture that is closed to the outside world. �They don�t show their tattoos for anyone- usually only their club,� she says. The tattoo artist invited her into his studio on the condition that she was not permitted to show the faces of his clients. The resulting images are mysterious and sensual, revealing sections of the body only., the designs of the tattoos identifying their owner as unique, elevating them to the stature of living, walking art. �Their tatoos are very different from Western tattoos. They use a lot of calligraphy,� she said. Yuan chose classical nude poses set against a black background, evoking the shadow world of the gangsters, highlighting characters and symbols as not merely ornamental and surface. They look beyond, away from the true identity toward a chosen identity of their owners. The world, and the body, can be written upon, and changed at will.
The artist�s latest body of work is a series entitled �Twelve Moons.� Comprised of twelve different portraits of Chinese Mothers and their babies, it touches on themes close to Yuan�s own psyche: motherhood, the zodiac and the roots of culture, both western and Chinese. �d�The idea came from Western culture,� she reveals. During a trip several years ago to Siena, Italy Yuan found herself drawn to many of the Renaissance paintings depicting the Madonna and Child. �I was very attracted,� she says. �I had always wanted to have a child. I knew I wanted to take portraits of mothers and children, but they would be Chinese mothers and children.� The work has many allusions, one being the Chinese social policy of �One Child� in which each family is only allowed one child.. �I wanted to combine the Madonna and child with Chinese culture,� she says. Yuan herself comes from a large family, as there were no restrictions on family size In Taiwan. The series also took 12 months, or twelve moons, to complete.
The Twelve Moon photographs are multilayered with meaning. Yuan placed each portrait, taken in a studio, in the foreground of a landscape of the province where the mother was from. These landscapes touch on the subject of environment and industrialization, and there is a deliberate disjunct between the subject and the background. She then cropped the image to a circle. �The moon in China is symbolic of family, and circle is perfection; round and perfect,� says Yuan, noting that some of the Renaissance Madonna paintings were done inside a circle. She also then placed a tattoo on each baby, representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac, once again touching on the marks of culture. �The Chinese are great believers in the Zodiac,� she explains. Gao was born in the year of the Tiger, and when asked if that is good, says �Oh yes, we always think of every year as a different kind of lucky.�
Yuan�s work has been exhibited widely in Europe, Japan, China and the United States. Her series on Chinese graffiti explores the closed world of social commentary, very different from what she saw painted on the walls and buildings of New York. �I lived in the neighborhood in Harlem where there a lot of graffiti. In China not anyone can do graffiti. It is done in secret.� she reveals. Her photographs of graffiti in China show it to be more akin to propaganda, or slogans from the government. Despite the limitations Yuan enjoys working in China �Right now there is more support of the arts, but they don�t like the arts to be involved in the political.� One of the limitations is that a good number of artists and photographers in China are male. �When I came to the United States I was surprised because there are so few professional women photographers in China.� She researched women photographers and became a great admirer of the work of Cindy Sherman. Though she is living in Beijing now, Yuan keeps her apartment in New York, dividing her time between the two countries. �It is easier to show my work in the U.S and in Europe. The work is more respected.� Yuan is planning another trip to Europe, hoping to work both in photography and film as she explores different cultures, and what lies beneath their surface.
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