Lot 1245: YOU JIN

YOU JIN
(B. 1979)
In Search of Interpretation in Urban Prosperity
signed in Chinese; dated '2008' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
150 x 200 cm. (59 x 78 3/4 in.)
Painted in 2008

The work adopts the composition of traditional Chinese landscape painting to construct a modernized urban landscape. One can take in the panoramic view in one glance to witness the appeal of an environment that is stunningly prosperous and splendid. Yet, everything here seems floating in midair. Depicted in bright neon colors, the landscape appears almost disintegrating and vanishing into the scene of constructed glamour. The art of You Jin brings the viewers into a fantastic world of hope, yet full of hidden dangers and problems.

You Jin is inspired by modern technology and developed his unique artistic language in using primarily basic colors on surfaces densely covered with colored lines and dots. Combined with the use of artificial fluorescent colors, it creates extraordinary and fantastic visual images.

"Perhaps, it is a time when old meets new, when there's order in chaos. It is an era full of latent danger and worry. The beauty on the surface and in the content reflects a kind of extravagant yet impractical possibility. The deceitful prosperity, the rubbish of new technology, the incompleteness of humanitarian spirit is deeply hidden in every part of human life. The progress of mankind can improve society, yet is also the origin of destruction. We always live in the midst of relations between antecedents and consequences, high and low, beginning and end. Perhaps when man finds a new beginning and end, it is also the time when the spirit of mankind decays." - You Jin