Bai Yueyu: "The Folded Space" and "The Replacement Space" (Department of Arts and Crafts)

Exploring artistic expressions through shape and space, Bai Yueyu's poetic, abstract artistic creations are full of imagination and mystery .

"The inner space is constructed in the constrained limits of the lacquer and its uncontrollable changes," Bai explained. "By folding and displacing, the real volume is compressed and dissolved, and expressed in complanation. The painting becomes unfamiliar and fictional; a collection of possibilities and imaginations that exist outside of the consciousness, detached from color, function and reality."

She orchestrated spaces and shapes through visions of architecture, photography and changing relationships, employing superposition, rotation, deconstruction and reorganization. In the end, everything in her hands converges to minimalism from abundance, while bringing out the most essential element: the triangle. 

"The triangle appears and repeats involuntarily in constant combinations and attempts. It is low-key and simple but powerful, and has directivity and mystery," she said. 

Inmaking her artworks, Bai opted to utilize lacquer. "Lacquer is quiet and ever-lasting, with delicate and rich texture, so the quiet, stable and structured picture is suitable for dividing the material texture of lacquer for expressions. The lacquer's darkness becomes bright and rich in my heart. It is an erratic but essential color of lacquer, and this essence points to the space itself: emptiness, virtualness, diffuseness, diffusion," she elaborated.

Her mentor, professor Cheng Xiangjun, noted that the "physical" and "visual" spaces formed by natural lacquer materials have become the focus of Bai's creative interest. "In the large-scale composition of her works, you can see her interaction with the medium of lacquer and her skillful, masterful ability."

He added: "The reason why these works resonate with people lies in her understanding of the contemporary painting nature of lacquer art. The works abandon the apparentbeauty of the decorative language of lacquer art, and use geometric shapes to form pictures in a minimalist way, which allows people to connect with the experience of daily life."

For Bai, lacquer takes her into a space suspended above reality. "Rich, full, disordered but tight, it is about your will and stability, boundless and repetitive. We cannot observe ourselves apart from in real time and space, but we can experience the feeling of watching ourselves in another dimension through materials."