Back to Gallery Next Artist - Erjun Zhao
Yong You
Avenue
Oil on canvas
2018
50 x 60 cm
Matter and spirit. During my study visit to St. Petersburg, I was deeply impressed by the city's visual soul, perspective. The highly consistent and tidy path in Avenue forms a standard perspective landscape, just like the perspective of the trees and the corridor.
—Yong You
Cheers
Oil on wood
2016
45 x 38 cm
Cheers presents a cup-touching (toasting) scene from daily life, which reminds me of the presence of the Holy Spirit when we take the Eucharist. The presence of the dove representing the Holy Spirit at the upper center of the painting indicates that everyday life is a path to sanctification.
—Yong You
Self-Portrait with Mirror in Hand
Oil on wood
2017
40 x 20 cm
Self-Portrait. This self-portrait alludes to the fact that my life is in Jesus’s hand.
—Yong You
Inspired by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer’s self-portraits where he painted himself in the guise of Christ, Yong You’s Self-Portrait with Mirror in Hand brings us into a close-up and personal encounter with the artist. But it moves beyond being a portrait of You alone. By placing the viewer facing the mirror held in a nail-pierced hand it asks, “Who do you see when you look in the mirror?” But even more importantly, “Who do you want to see?” and “How can you become more like that person?”
About the Artist
Born in 1988 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, Yong You studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts from 2008-2012 and graduated from the Third Workshop of the Department of Oil Painting. In 2014-2015, he participated in the China-Russia Oil Painting Master Class co-sponsored by Chinese Academy of Oil Painting and Repin Academy of Fine Arts. Since 2012 he has been artist-in-residence at the Chinese Academy of Oil Painting in Beijing and since 2018 is a doctoral candidate under Yang Feiyun at the Chinese National Academy of Arts.