Yi Xin Tong “Ring over Pond over Tusks”

Chambers Fine Art

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Chambers Fine Art and Candice Madey present an exhibition of recent works by Yi Xin Tong opening April 6 in the project space of Candice Madey. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition hosted by the two galleries. Tong was born in 1988 on Lu Mountain (Lushan), celebrated not only for its natural beauty but also for its associations with Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism over many centuries. Significantly, his early interests were in geology which he studied at China University of Geosciences from 2005 to 2007. He later received his BFA from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and his MFA in studio art from New York University.

Once settled in the Canada and the United States, Tong’s range of interests widened as he began to explore his new environment. Not confined to his studio, he spends a considerable amount of time outdoors, observing geological formations and bodies of water where his is able to pursue his passion for fishing. Deeply interested in science and the natural world, he has explored the multiple ways in which he can give expression to this all-consuming curiosity, through the creation of three-dimensional objects, video, poetry, and music. He has created publications such as NYC Fishing Journal, which consists of images and notes on hundreds of fishing trips between 2015 and 2018, numerous sound albums, and the ten-channel HD video installation Poems in the Mount Lu Zoo, exhibited at UCCA, Beijing in 2020. Another medium he has explored is tapestry, as in the large-scale Jacquard tapestry series Animalistic Punk, 2018-19.

Small in scale, sculptures in Ring over Pond over Tusks are poetic distillations of Yi Xin’s multifarious interests and activities. In addition to his passion for the natural environment, Tong has a strong affinity with ancient and medieval artifacts which offer invaluable insights into ways of thinking about the universe that preceded current science-based interpretations. Sculptures include various materials such as metal, fabric, and bits of found detritus encased in matrixes constructed with an improbable mixture of porcelain clay and colored resin. Like concrete poems or absurdist haiku, they say more than they show–their reverberations heightened by seeming unrelated titles such as Climbing Figure (a reference to the Capitol insurrectionists), or The Relationship between Birds and Land. While Climbing Figure is painterly in effect and reminiscent of some of the wilder works of Joan Miró or Sonia Delaunay, Ripple II and The Relationship between Birds and Land are more architectonic and could be conceived as three-dimensional maps or models for large-scale installations.

Yi Xin Tong’s work has been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing; Today Art Museum, Beijing; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei; and the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, among other institutions.