Qinxi Yu

Graduation: 2021 https://qinxiyu.wixsite.com/ciciy @qinxi_yu

Yu Qinxi is a Chinese artist who currently lives in New York, she creates installations, mix media sculpture, paintings, videos and HTML games based on her exploration of ideology and political and social issues. In her sculptures, She questions the boundaries of her personal life and the world of technology, politics and history. By exploring and magnifying the world of personal life and combining it with the abbreviation of the external landscape, She tries to create a thumbnail of the sensory experience of the contemporary technological society.

Escape is based on my childhood memories, sensory experiences of things. Taking the train to visit my father every week. One of my most important memories is the sight of a speeding track through a squatting hole in a rickety green train, it's the basis of the work Escape. Large scale production of daily necessities is separated from daily life, and they are magnified and transformed. They combine with industrial materials and embed video of the landscape in the installation. In the installation, the landscape is reduced and everyday objects are magnified, symbolizing that in the environment surrounded by everyday objects, people experience nature, politics, and history through the screen. On the other hand, the use of video in these works makes it separate from the plane and integrate with the three-dimensional sculpture. Time, memory and narrative are shown through the movement of video and the color change of ecopoxy due to sunlight illumination.

Yu Qinxi, Escape, 2019. Materials: foam, fake grass, ecopoxy glass, newspaper. 30 x 6.5 x 30 inches.

Escape is based on my childhood memories, sensory experiences of things. Taking the train to visit my father every week. One of my most important memories is the sight of a speeding track through a squatting hole in a rickety green train, it's the basis of the work Escape. Large scale production of daily necessities is separated from daily life, and they are magnified and transformed. They combine with industrial materials and embed video of the landscape in the installation. In the installation, the landscape is reduced and everyday objects are magnified, symbolizing that in the environment surrounded by everyday objects, people experience nature, politics, and history through the screen. On the other hand, the use of video in these works makes it separate from the plane and integrate with the three-dimensional sculpture. Time, memory and narrative are shown through the movement of video and the color change of ecopoxy due to sunlight illumination.

Yu Qinxi, Escape, 2019. Materials: foam, fake grass, ecopoxy glass, newspaper. 30 x 6.5 x 30 inches.

Labyrinth is based on a childhood photo of me holding a sheep in my arms on the farm, and a memory of playing chess with my father. In this work, I use three sheep. The number three represents the world and transformations. It is a moderate number. Different from it, chessboard is playing chess, a competition, representing the number two. These two sets of symbolic elements depict a competition of chaotic, mindless changes that occur in everyday life and are private, personal and unique. The timer placed on the cut-off head (the timer is used in regular chess games) is a referee and a sense of urgency, not only for the game, but also for the fleeting time (number growth, aggregation) ——every number shown is in the past before it is realized—— but the electronic timer itself is electronic and fragile. It records the time when it doesn't exist. All the symbolic elements are digital/numbers, they are driven by the timer, but the timer itself is illusory, it is recording non-existent time.

Yu Qinxi, Labyrinth, 2020. Foam, mosaic, plastic, timer. 30 x 21 x 30 inches.

Labyrinth is based on a childhood photo of me holding a sheep in my arms on the farm, and a memory of playing chess with my father. In this work, I use three sheep. The number three represents the world and transformations. It is a moderate number. Different from it, chessboard is playing chess, a competition, representing the number two. These two sets of symbolic elements depict a competition of chaotic, mindless changes that occur in everyday life and are private, personal and unique. The timer placed on the cut-off head (the timer is used in regular chess games) is a referee and a sense of urgency, not only for the game, but also for the fleeting time (number growth, aggregation) ——every number shown is in the past before it is realized—— but the electronic timer itself is electronic and fragile. It records the time when it doesn't exist. All the symbolic elements are digital/numbers, they are driven by the timer, but the timer itself is illusory, it is recording non-existent time.

Yu Qinxi, Labyrinth, 2020. Foam, mosaic, plastic, timer. 30 x 21 x 30 inches.

Seize is based on my childhood imagination of the sewer hole of the wash basin, which leads to a kingdom where residents live on the water flowing from the wash basin. This imagination is a vague illusion, sometimes clear, sometimes implicit, is a landscape. This landscape like what in the eye test is an open grassland, with a red roof hut in the middle. It is sometimes clear and sometimes fuzzy during the test. It is testing everyone who observes or tries to capture it. When you really see it, it also reveals the truth of yourself. The pattern of the target as a wash basin indicates the direction of the water and the direction of the thinking of this work. The target has a kind of playfulness. Its center (the highest score point) is hidden in the hole of the sewer. It implies that my answer to this work is also hidden in this hole. The answer is the fanciful kingdom (a landscape), but this kingdom is ambiguous, just like the world of our daily life. We can see it clearly at the same time the real self is also captured by it.

Yu Qinxi, Seize, 2020. Foam, newspaper, ecopoxy glass, fake grass, faucet, video. 30 x 12 x 30 inches.

Seize is based on my childhood imagination of the sewer hole of the wash basin, which leads to a kingdom where residents live on the water flowing from the wash basin. This imagination is a vague illusion, sometimes clear, sometimes implicit, is a landscape. This landscape like what in the eye test is an open grassland, with a red roof hut in the middle. It is sometimes clear and sometimes fuzzy during the test. It is testing everyone who observes or tries to capture it. When you really see it, it also reveals the truth of yourself. The pattern of the target as a wash basin indicates the direction of the water and the direction of the thinking of this work. The target has a kind of playfulness. Its center (the highest score point) is hidden in the hole of the sewer. It implies that my answer to this work is also hidden in this hole. The answer is the fanciful kingdom (a landscape), but this kingdom is ambiguous, just like the world of our daily life. We can see it clearly at the same time the real self is also captured by it.

Yu Qinxi, Seize, 2020. Foam, newspaper, ecopoxy glass, fake grass, faucet, video. 30 x 12 x 30 inches.

Seize is based on my childhood imagination of the sewer hole of the wash basin, which leads to a kingdom where residents live on the water flowing from the wash basin. This imagination is a vague illusion, sometimes clear, sometimes implicit, is a landscape. This landscape like what in the eye test is an open grassland, with a red roof hut in the middle. It is sometimes clear and sometimes fuzzy during the test. It is testing everyone who observes or tries to capture it. When you really see it, it also reveals the truth of yourself. The pattern of the target as a wash basin indicates the direction of the water and the direction of the thinking of this work. The target has a kind of playfulness. Its center (the highest score point) is hidden in the hole of the sewer. It implies that my answer to this work is also hidden in this hole. The answer is the fanciful kingdom (a landscape), but this kingdom is ambiguous, just like the world of our daily life. We can see it clearly at the same time the real self is also captured by it.

Yu Qinxi, Seize, 2020. Foam, newspaper, ecopoxy glass, fake grass, faucet, video. 30 x 12 x 30 inches.

Her Stacked Back Disappeared in the Long Journey is a mixed-media sculpture. It's based on my childhood memory: I always saw my mother's back when I was sitting in the back seat of the bicycle. This image was repeated and stacked in countless similar days. In the end, these years were like scenes of fantasy, both years and not years. The back seat of a bicycle is not only an object existing in memory, but also an image of one stage of the journey of life. And it's part of the vehicle, and designed for children. Whether by bike or in childhood, mother is a guide. Part of all elements of my sculpture is a metronome which is a static movement of time, which is similar to my memory. Through this regular movement, it repeats, accumulates and reappears. The trunk passing through the back seat of the bicycle is an illusion of the mother's back. It is like mother's back leaving its main body, but it is more and more vivid and tenacious in my memory. The memory is violently embodied and therewith a part of me, it always makes a comeback in another form no matter how much I try to force this memory into the dark. This form is finally transformed into a specific sensory experience, and mother's real back has long disappeared in the long journey of life.

Yu Qinxi, Her Stacked Back Disappeared in the Long Journey, 2021. Mosaic tiles, tree branch, video, plastic bicycle backseat. 74 x 52 x 15 inches.

Her Stacked Back Disappeared in the Long Journey is a mixed-media sculpture. It's based on my childhood memory: I always saw my mother's back when I was sitting in the back seat of the bicycle. This image was repeated and stacked in countless similar days. In the end, these years were like scenes of fantasy, both years and not years. The back seat of a bicycle is not only an object existing in memory, but also an image of one stage of the journey of life. And it's part of the vehicle, and designed for children. Whether by bike or in childhood, mother is a guide. Part of all elements of my sculpture is a metronome which is a static movement of time, which is similar to my memory. Through this regular movement, it repeats, accumulates and reappears. The trunk passing through the back seat of the bicycle is an illusion of the mother's back. It is like mother's back leaving its main body, but it is more and more vivid and tenacious in my memory. The memory is violently embodied and therewith a part of me, it always makes a comeback in another form no matter how much I try to force this memory into the dark. This form is finally transformed into a specific sensory experience, and mother's real back has long disappeared in the long journey of life.

Yu Qinxi, Her Stacked Back Disappeared in the Long Journey, 2021. Mosaic tiles, tree branch, video, plastic bicycle backseat. 74 x 52 x 15 inches.

Her Stacked Back Disappeared in the Long Journey is a mixed-media sculpture. It's based on my childhood memory: I always saw my mother's back when I was sitting in the back seat of the bicycle. This image was repeated and stacked in countless similar days. In the end, these years were like scenes of fantasy, both years and not years. The back seat of a bicycle is not only an object existing in memory, but also an image of one stage of the journey of life. And it's part of the vehicle, and designed for children. Whether by bike or in childhood, mother is a guide. Part of all elements of my sculpture is a metronome which is a static movement of time, which is similar to my memory. Through this regular movement, it repeats, accumulates and reappears. The trunk passing through the back seat of the bicycle is an illusion of the mother's back. It is like mother's back leaving its main body, but it is more and more vivid and tenacious in my memory. The memory is violently embodied and therewith a part of me, it always makes a comeback in another form no matter how much I try to force this memory into the dark. This form is finally transformed into a specific sensory experience, and mother's real back has long disappeared in the long journey of life.

Yu Qinxi, Her Stacked Back Disappeared in the Long Journey, 2021. Mosaic tiles, tree branch, video, plastic bicycle backseat. 74 x 52 x 15 inches.

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