Yang Jiechang: Beneath the Golden Antlers

As part of the gallery’s ongoing programmatic focus on contemporary artists from the Asian diaspora, Qualia is proud to welcome Yang back to the Bay Area following his inclusion in the 2022 group exhibition Beyond Ink, curated by Xiaoze Xie. The exhibition will highlight a recent body of work that includes the artist’s representations of animals, in addition to a selection of works from the seminal “Hundred Layers of Ink” series. Yang’s practice is underpinned by an amalgam of influences and elements from traditional Chinese culture and Western modernism. While he works in a variety of media, such as painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and video, Yang is best known for his mastery of traditional Chinese media — brush and ink painting, meticulous color painting, and calligraphy — a legacy and cultural tradition central to his oeuvre. Despite this expertise, much of Yang’s practice is an experiment in abandoning his academic training and reconsidering its conventions. Qualia invites visitors to experience “intermediacy” through Yang Jiechang’s artistic process and practice. Spanning more than three decades of Yang’s prolific career, Beyond the Golden Antlers will introduce audiences to the visual lexicon and conceptual concerns of this foremost contemporary ink artist.