Yowshien Kuo: Sufferingly Politely, installation view, Great Rivers Biennial 2022: Yowshien Kuo, Yvonne Osei, Jon Young, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, September 9, 2022–February 12, 2023. Photo courtesy Dusty Kessler.
Great Rivers Biennial
Established in 2003, the Great Rivers Biennial is a collaborative exhibition program presented by CAM and the Gateway Foundation. The initiative identifies talented emerging and mid-career artists working in the greater St. Louis metro area, provides them with financial assistance, and elevates their profile across the Midwest and national art communities.
Yowshien Kuo, Two Right Feet, Snake Eyes and Cherry Pie, 2022. Acrylic, bone ash, chalk, synthetic fibers, iridescent pigment, plastic, and glitter on canvas. 46 x 70 inches. Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Torino, Italy.Yowshien Kuo, A Country Boy Meows, 2021. Acrylic, bone ash, chalk, synthetic fibers, iridescent pigment, and glitter on canvas. 52 x 50 inches. Courtesy the artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Brookline, MA.Yowshien Kuo, A Decadent Veil (detail), 2022. Acrylic, bone ash, chalk, synthetic fibers, iridescent pigment, vinyl, mixed fibers, and glitter on canvas. 42 x 48 inches. Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Torino, Italy.Yowshien Kuo, A Decadent Veil, 2022. Acrylic, bone ash, chalk, synthetic fibers, iridescent pigment, vinyl, mixed fibers, and glitter on canvas. 42 x 48 inches. Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Torino, Italy.Yowshien Kuo, Dreams in a Barrel Aimed at the Sky, 2021. Acrylic, bone ash, chalk, synthetic fibers, iridescent pigment, and glitter on canvas. 52 x 50 inches. Courtesy the artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Brookline, MA.Yowshien Kuo, Ornamental Oriental, 2022. Acrylic, gouache, chalk dust, bone ash, and paper on canvas. 25 x 29 inches. Courtesy the artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Brookline, MA.Yowshien Kuo, I Was a Virgin to Myself, I Do Believe, 2021. Acrylic, bone ash, chalk, synthetic fibers, iridescent pigment, and glitter on canvas. 34 x 30 inches. Courtesy the artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Brookline, MA.
Yowshien Kuo
Yowshien Kuo’s paintings feature glimmering candy-colored surfaces to mask haunting themes, alluding to social trauma as a result of historical and contemporary narratives. The figures’ reactions to themselves and even the audience’s gaze intend to encourage viewers to confront potentially harmful cultural and social norms. The figures are intertwined with an environment that appears as a collage of reality and dreamscape, often including visual artifacts that reveal the mood and intentions of the scene taking place. For his exhibition at CAM, Kuo conveys these themes in new large-scale paintings with subtle installation elements to encourage contemplation and self-reflection.
Yvonne Osei, No Child’s Play (detail), 2020. Textile design. Courtesy the artist. Yvonne Osei, Aaron and Cameron in Shoot Me Not and Checkered Whites and Blacks, 2016. Video still from the From Utopia, With Love collection. Courtesy the artist.Yvonne Osei, Africa Clothe Me Bare, Bloomington, 2019. Photograph. Courtesy the artist. Yvonne Osei, Here to Stay: Serena in Yoked (Blue), 2017. Photograph. Courtesy the artist. Yvonne Osei, Truth Through Her Eyes from The Bruised, The Burdened, The Laborer and The Naked, 2021. Site-specific installation. The Regional, installation view, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, December 10, 2021–March 20, 2022. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Wes Battoclette.
Yvonne Osei
Yvonne Osei’s multidisciplinary creative practice explores topics of beauty, racism and colorism, the authorship and ownership of history, as well as the residual implications of colonialism in postcolonial West Africa and Western cultures. Through performance art, engaging public spaces, site-specific installations, video, photography, garment construction, and textile designs, Osei’s work serves as a mouthpiece for generations that have been marginalized as she pushes against unilateral perspectives. The exhibition at CAM features an immersive photo-video installation that utilizes the language of clothing and textiles, as well as the medium of time, to reckon with past and ongoing racial atrocities in the United States.
Jon Young, Next Exit, 2021. Iridescent fabric, wood, batting, sand from Historic Route 66 Eureka, Missouri. 59 x 68 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches. Courtesy the artist. Jon Young, Out of the Blue, 2021. Iridescent fabric, wood, batting, sand from Happy Jack, Wyoming. 44 x 60 x 7 1/4 inches. Courtesy the artist. Jon Young, Return to Denver, 2020. Iridescent fabric, wood, batting. 48 x 48 x 5 inches. Courtesy the artist. Jon Young, Installation view of Straight Shot from Here at J Hammond Projects, 2020. Courtesy the artist.Jon Young, Under Loose Gravel, 2021. Iridescent fabric, wood, batting. 46 1/2 x 46 1/2 x 5 inches. Courtesy the artist.Jon Young, Under the Table, 2020. Iridescent fabric, wood, batting. 47 x 47 x 3 inches. Courtesy the artist.
Jon Young
Through wood, sand, and fabric sculptures, Jon Young explores the development of language and signage of the American West. These works, which he refers to as “waymarks,” adopt historical symbols from Paleolithic cave paintings, ancient Greek pottery, and imagery found in Hollywood Westerns and Looney Tunes cartoons. Young’s work investigates and collapses layers of time and signifiers, particularly relating to the Romanticism of the West. The artist characterizes his practice as attempting “to make a map using fluctuating symbols, to get back to a home that hasn’t existed for a very long time or for so long that you question if it existed at all.”
