Her profound adeptness at utilizing the oriental painting materials demonstrates vividly in the exquisite brush strokes captured by the vellum paper and the grainy matte effects delivered by the Su Mo – literally meaning overnight ink, a revived dried-up ink with water. The combination of vellum paper and Su Mo, forms unpredictable overlapping of light and shadow seen in wrinkled fabric and broken irregular velvet surface.
Before a stroke is dry, another stroke is painted over it. When the painting is totally dry, various strokes done in various times surface with various tones of ink. It reminds one of the film- developing processes. The contrast between the thick black images and the pure white paper is somewhat like the ones in the negative films.
Its delicate grayish tone and the Su Mo characteristic grainy feature also prompt up one to relate to Daguerreotype.
One might associate the wide-brushed strokes on her paintings with the ones found in oil paintings, dragging with heavy paint. However, the distinctive features of Su Mo, blurry outline with grainy texture bring viewers’ attention back to the sensation of lightness conveyed via water-soluble mediums. It is this particular light and transparent quality that perfectly captures certain fleeting light.
An Insight into Yu-Ning Yang’s Paintings By Yuchang Shen
