Yu Hong 喻红

Yu Hong’s sensitive renderings of female figures often probe the issues of women’s roles in contemporary society. For Fresh Ink, Yu responded to the MFA’s iconic masterpiece, Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk.  Her new paintings question the ways in which women and “women’s work” have been depicted now and then.

Yu Hong stepped outside the medium for which she is best-known—oil on canvas—and worked instead with thinly mixed acrylics on silk, an experiment that has yielded exciting effects evocative of the traditional brush and ink. Yu’s paintings will hang from the gallery ceiling as eight bolts of cascading silk, a display that will resonate with the subject in the Court Ladies, while simultaneously drawing attention to the materiality of the painting.

Spring Romance, acrylic on silk, 2009

Emperor Huizong (1082-1135), Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk, ink and color on silk, early 12th century

Detail from Spring Romance, acrylic on silk, 2009