Today we’d like to introduce you to Yannie Gu.
Hi Yannie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Grew up in Shanghai, China and educated in New York, I was able to gain different perspectives through the vehicle of languages and cultures. Having lived in two of the busiest, liveliest cities in the world, I am deeply interested in the core of our modern society, which is the people as well as their psychology. From observing people, particularly women around me, I am drawn to the exploration of women’s behaviors and ways of thinking on individual and collective levels.
The females I saw while growing up have also inspired me, such as my grandmother, my ballet teachers in my childhood, women I saw in the shopping mall or on the subway, etc. I found them beautiful in their own ways. As an Asian-identified woman living in Western society, I’ve realized that most of the time Asian women are being perceived as agreeable and minding our own business, which sometimes our voice is easy to be translated as insignificant. My current focus in my work is to give the selfhood and agency to the women in my paintings – they can be soft and sensual, they dream, but they are also resilient, rebellious, comfortable in their own skin, and so many more.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I see the creative challenges I encounter at the moment as an opportunity for me to dive deeper into the issues, which could either be technical or intellectual. One of the current challenges is how to make the narrative component stronger in my paintings. Everyone enjoys an interesting story. Since I would like to capture the complex, multi-layered dimensions of women’s self-identities in my work, I am learning to create a more cinematic picture for my audience to look at within a two-dimensional canvas space. I’ve also started to introduce creative writing into my art practice, which has helped to expand my imagination.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As a multi-disciplinary artist, I work primarily in drawing, painting, and writing. The subject of my artworks mostly concentrates on exploring women’s self-identities, as well as human psychological activities, while facing collective and personal traumas. Drawing inspiration from photographic source materials and films, my work creates surreal settings with the use of vibrant, playful color palettes, conducting open discussions on the idea of femininity through different fictional characters. Lying between realistic and representational artistic styles, my paintings capture female figures in a variety of actions that further reflect women’s deeper insecurities and uneasiness through a voyeuristic lens. Subject matters like the introspection of being in a woman’s physical body, fantastical delusions and rampant emotions, which are difficult to be delineated through words are able to find their way in stories in the paintings.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
My recent favorite book has to be “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong. It is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful and poetic book, where the author writes about his deceased mother, his family’s immigrant story from Vietnam to America, and more. Ocean Vuong is great at using rhetoric in his writing, and I find myself always wanting to come back to this book.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yanniegu.com
- Instagram: @yanixgu
Image Credits
Yahan Wang Yannie Gu
