You Si’s contemporary paintings recall the experimental artwork of the mid 20th Century and its play with the visual language, in particular abstract art and its search of inner experiences and emotions. In You’s work he adds to this with a showcase of sinuous lines, bright acrylics and smooth ink-washes that leave you feeling as though you’re falling into a sunny sky of cumulus clouds. You’s paintings are predominantly abstract in form, and highly aesthetic in appeal.
Organic in motion and movement, there’s also a hold of the magical in You’s art, the colours overlapping in a display of dance and with none leading its movement. When viewing You’s art your eyes dash all over the place in an attempt to try to absorb the artwork at it fullest, but with no specific focus-point you’re left to be submerged within it. It’s very apt then that some of these abstract images hold a reference to biology; of being a part of every living thing – from micro cells A Change in Circulation (2006) – to the macrocosms of structure that surround everything, both internally and externally.
Within You’s abstract paintings this essence of the natural world is investigated not just with a cellular breakdown of amoebas, but with a range of flora being swept into his canvases. Its energy wild and uncontrolled as it grows, while their flowers bloom into full eruption – Expectation of Spring (2009). Nature’s biology celebrated as it transforms, whether from a seed into a flower, a caterpillar into a butterfly. You’s art invites the viewer to reflect on this ability of change, the artwork instilling a sense of the spiritual, but it’s undefinable and left as a mystery to be explored.
Expectation of Spring, 2009, Ink and Color on Rice Paper by You Si. Art Labor Gallery
An influence of abstract expressionism can be seen in You’s art, but in merging with traditional ink-washes and the material of rice paper, You infuses the cultural history of China. When viewing You Si’s art a sense of escapism hits you as the painting moves in a loop of action to reaction, its unpredictable designs almost theatrical in performance as it charges forth with emotions.
