yao lu

impermanence of all things

online group EXHIBITION

February.24 - JUNE.26.2022

Yao Lu: They imitate them and are mistaken for them. The images created by Chinese artist Yao Lu take up the aesthetic codes of shanshui paintings: a framing that recalls the format of the literati’s scroll painting, a composition that plays between fullness and emptiness of a mountainous landscape covered with mist and pierced by the pines and the roofs of the temples, calligraphic inscriptions...

Behind this appearance of traditional Chinese painting, Yao Lu tries to reveal one of China’s facets: the rapid development, the increasing urbanization, the incessant constructions, as well as the pollution and the disappearance of the natural and cultural heritages which result from it. His mountains turn out to be piles of rubbish and wastes while the lush green grass turns out to be heaps of nets.

Yao Lu’s work process is long and methodical: during his travels through China, he photographs from different angles landscapes of landfills and piles of litter that he has previously covered with a green net. He then creates a photomontage made up of details taken from his pictures, to which he adds elements and effects characteristic of classical Chinese painting.

“People must protect the environment.
This work implies that the world should become
more and more harmonious.”

- Yao Lu

Traditional shanshui landscapes advocate harmony between man and nature, and the interdependence of all things. Yao Lu's images alert us to the contemporary disconnection of man from nature, and the effects that this interdependence implies: the metamorphoses of our environments, the issues linked to overconsumption and waste, and ecological imbalances. With his trompe-l'oeil of thousand-year-old landscapes, Yao Lu leads us to question what we believe is eternal. And as Taoist philosophy reminds us so well, permanence is illusory.