Nai-Jen Yang
xi xi su su
14 March - 17 April 2025
Something close to music[i]
…from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which has drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.[ii]
…at the midpoint of this text, looking out at the mid-morning sky, I am reminded that we are witnessing a seasonal shift, gliding in slow increments, passing through the midwinter bite, into awakening spring. Each morning we are greeted by new growth emerging on the windowsill ledge — a dwarf narcissus, Rip Van Winkle, fanning out its semi-transparent, miniaturised tendrils. Daily movements are punctuated by hues of rejuvenation – voluminous violets, silvers and whites, buttered yellows ever-so-lightly caress the ground yet last but a moment. Nature’s tender flashes delight the amenable, and yet, as easily can pass by unknowingly or, depending on the time of day, get swallowed beneath the blanket of grey.
‘…let us remember them constantly, whether to observe them, or to augment them.’[iii]
You may wonder to what extent, of sensation or occupation, the above brings to the conversation of Taiwanese-born-now-London-based, Nai-Jen Yang’s practice. The simple answer is that of place and the quality of noticing it. Whether acknowledging, or moreover privileging, the simple marvels and textures of daily life, Nai-Jen Yang, consciously places the poetic and the transportable streams – or rather inexhaustible sense and sensibilities of our earth’s natural and temporal turns – into plain sight. Swinging from here and there but never approaching anything (subject nor context) directly, Nai-Jen Yang driftingly, like cloud formations, hints toward the subtle shifts of lightness, darkness, stillness and silence; probing the light that cascades on the horizon or at a season’s edge.
Nai-Jen Yang, it seems, has imposed or proposed a hypothesis that what is seen is at the same time heard… For her exhibition at mother’s tankstation London, Yang, quietly alludes and pivots to a musical conclusion; xi xi su su – an onomatopoeic sound translated to English, referencing a rustling noise, (a succession or procession? of soft, small, whispering sounds, like that of dry leaves) – suggestively paralleling the ebbs and flows of ambient sounds. The relationship between each precise and produced ingredient combines into a distinct frequency, gesture, rhythm or repeat. A sort-of synaesthesia arguably, whereby sound becomes indistinguishable from sight, thus sight becomes indistinguishable from sound.
Pullulating marks, horizontal or vertical, rising and falling across her 160 x 120 cm canvas, aptly titled Falling[iv], float homogenously close to music. But it is by the use of traditional techniques and gestural repeats, that Yang, who in archetypical impressionistic fashion, privileges the processes of material,[v] – highlighting that this process is the utmost crucial element to her meditative practice – utilising reductively only two materials: rabbit skin glue and oil to disperse a string of fragmentary and imaginary vignettes. Shadow play, the weather’s wavering head, or the dust gathering at a table edge, appear and disappear; call and respond to material and/or scenic displays that lay, or are conveyed before her.
Explaining that “instead of what to paint, I think about how to paint. Before starting a painting, I will decide how I’m going to paint it — what kind of fabric, marks, and colours I am going to use? Also size and scale. Usually, the decisions will be affected by my surroundings… sometimes, I will make a painting simply because there is a certain kind of fabric, mark, colour, or a way of painting that I want to try.”[vi]
Yang’s use of swift and subtle colour-play seamlessly moves in murmuration. Actively engaging in a game of hide-and-seek, each canvas’ optical impression and momentary interaction dispenses, distorts, refracts or reroutes light. Soft and serene, the ever-changing perceptual lightness, at times fleeting, outwardly collapses into a myriad of impressions. Springing above and below, as to trigger a durational and sonorous sense of feeling.
[i] John Ashbery – Taking inspiration from a recent publication of selected writings by John Ashbery, specifically influenced by Ashbery‘s multiplex of musical abundance, a varying kind.
[ii] Jane Austen, Persuasion, Volume I, Chapter X, p.85, JM Dent & Co, London, 1898. Most recently inspired by the period drama, Miss Austen, as to re-read fragmentary moments of Austen’s Persuasion.
[iii] Olivier Messiaen, The Techniques of my Musical Language, Chapter 1: The Charm of Impossibilities and the Relation of the Different Subject Matters, p.13, Trans. John Satterfield, Alphonse Leduc et Cle, Éditions Musicales, Paris, (1944) ed.1956.
[iv] From our first studio visit with the Yang, she explains the titles influence and ‘feeling’, inspired by the music she listens to at a given time.
[v] Underlining the significance and influence of painter, Christopher Le Brun, Nai-Jen Yang quotes the artist: “The actual reality of making a painting is that you cover things. It may sound banal, but its full of implication. Lets say there is a white canvas […] as soon as you put paint on it, the light of the canvas is diminished.” A preeminent cause and effect that evidently aligns with Yang’s processes of masking and unmasking/concealing. Its form, colour, and texture of Nai-Jen Yang’s preferred medium morphs and rather manipulates our visual perception.
[vi] From the artist’s notes on her processes.
