In the project, I combine the medium of photography and sculptures to create both photographic and sculptural assemblage. I use fleshy Sculpey clay to build up altered and fragmented bodies as my subjects, aiming to create a dialogue between the ambiguous nature of the objects and the space depicted in photographs- photography is the pictorial representation of mental states.
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In the project, I combine the medium of photography and sculptures to create both photographic and sculptural assemblage. I use fleshy Sculpey clay to build up altered and fragmented bodies as my subjects, aiming to create a dialogue between the ambiguous nature of the objects and the space depicted in photographs- photography is the pictorial representation of mental states.
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A cactus
in the Chimney
Project Description
NEWS
Exhibition / Work Feature/ Interview
Sep, 25, 2023
2024 Light Work Artist in Residence
With enormous pleasure, Light Work announces the 2024 Light Work Artists-in-Residence (AIRs).
A total of thirteen artists working in photography and related media received residencies:
Wills Brewer (California), Robin Crookall (New York), Jermaine Francis (United Kingdom), Andrew Kung (New York), Yi Hsuan Lai (New York), Spandita Malik (Missouri), Mollie McKinley (New York), Cheryl Miller (Massachusetts), Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez (Canada), Aria Shahrokhshahi (United Kingdom), riel & Bianca Sturchio (Iowa), Rashod Taylor (Missouri), and Nolan Trowe (Pennsylvania).
Nov, 09, 2023
PhMuseum 2023 Women Photographers Grant shortlist
Congratulations to the 32 shortlisted works of this 7th edition. Their work is in consideration for €10,000 in cash, and will be projected at Photo Vogue Festival 2023 (Milan, 16-19 November). The main prize recipients, and the awardees of the other prizes will be announced on 21 November.
March, 27, 2024
Interview: WHITEHOT MAGAZINE
by Clare Gemima
Throughout our conversation, Lai unveiled the layers of her process, drawing inspiration from Cubism, the organic minimalism of Eva Hesse, and the disquieting narratives of sci-fi auteur David Cronenberg. Emerging from this eclectic mix of influences, Gut Feeling resonates uncomfortably deeply, and confronts viewers with imagery that feels uncannily familiar. Navigating the liminal spaces between the known-self and the foreign-other, Lai's explorations visualize and interrogate her own visceral response to the ever-shifting landscape – or in this case, idea – of existence.
June, 26, 2023
Interview: SHOUTOUT LA
My artistic practice explores the interplay between two and three dimensions, combining straight photography and photographic collages. I incorporate sculptural forms, often using discarded and disposable materials and my own body, to create assemblages for staged photography. Through photography, I give these materials new identities and construct a new realm for them to inhabit.
By using these objects as proxies for the body, I recontextualize the notion of sentient beings within a psychological landscape, seeking to articulate a new relationship with objects and surroundings and as a reflection of my own experiences as an Othered who has felt alienated.
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April, 16, 2023
Interview: WU Magazine Issue 119
Interview by Alessandra Lanza
"After a period of logistical and emotional changes that have drained her creatively, inspiration comes as a surprise in 2022 for Yi Hsuan Lai during an artist residency: she sets her gaze on some abandoned packaging objects and materials in the corner of her studio, which, illuminated by the sun, resemble a human body, and she is struck by inspiration. Thus, an ever-evolving project is born in which photography recontextualizes waste and disposable materials, giving them new identities and creating a new world."
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March 17- April 30, 2023
Exhibition: In-Between 2023 Lush Fiction
Curated by Yanira Castro, Martita Abril, and Zahra Banyamerian
in New York Lives Art
In selecting and bringing this work together from New York Foundation for the Arts’ 2023 immigrant artist cohort—nineteen artists from nineteen countries covering four continents—we hope to highlight a diversity of forms, mediums, materials, backgrounds, identities. Our title for this year’s exhibition, Lush Friction, is our response to overarching themes we experience in the works of this year’s cohort—use of sumptuous imagery, and conflicting conversations on memory, fiction, desire, alienation, authoritarianism, and interconnectedness. Lush Friction re-interprets in-betweenness as non-fictional/fictional reminiscence, considering the complexity of our shared experiences of (un)belonging, the resistance to being defined by border crossing, and the continual quest for community.
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NYFA Immigrant Artist Exhibition
Feb. 8-23, 2023
Exhibition: Paroxysm
Curtated by Alison Pirie in Westbeth Gallery, NY
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Catalyzed by events over the past three years, the forthcoming group exhibition at Westbeth Gallery features 65 artists from the US and abroad whose work embodies an
urgent response to the worsening social, mental, and physical symptom of our shared world.
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More Info
April, 16, 2023
Exhibition: Lonely ROCKS-
Self Portraiture
Curated by James McGirk in Untitled Art Fair in Miami
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March, 2022
Work Feature:
Lens Culture - Critic's Choice Top 10
Yi Hsuan Lai images are the fruit of a research where light, color and shapes interact to give life to new, often sculptoric, microcosms. The images though are more than that and hide a range of emotions where the psychological and metaphorical sides are as important as a genuine research for the aesthetics. Each one of us is welcome to connect to the found objects portrayed and the metaphysical sets openly, something that gives strength to her approach and the themes she invites you to explore, including self-identity, femininity, and the Otherness. Her practice as a very good potential and deserves to be explored further.
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written by Giuseppe Oliverio from PHmuseum & PHmuseum Lab
Where are you at this mement? ~ Joint, 2021. Print. Gabriele’ Gervickaite’ (Lithuania) and Yi Hsuan Lai (NYC).
November 21, 2021-September 22, 2022
Exhibition:
Austrian Cultural Forum-UN/MUTE Residency
The Austrian Cultural Forum New York and Undercurrent are pleased to present un/mute, an international group exhibition of collaborative works by 28 artists across multiple disciplines. On view at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and Undercurrent, the exhibition is the culmination of an 18-month-long project that was launched in 2020 providing European and NYC-based artists with an opportunity for critical exchange and collaboration during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
May 22, 2021-September 18, 2021
Exhibition:
If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now
Curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby and Will Hutnick in Wassaic Project
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