Rimi Yang pulls contrasting cultures in to her paintings. The female figure is dominant through out her paintings. She looks at fluctuating traditions and trends in history right up to today. Yang gives us enough clues to the period of time the painting comments on through the women’s’ clothing and stature. From the Victorian women who sits with her child as if she is sitting for a traditional portrait surrounding the female subject with a status, to the modern women painted like she is a pixalised photograph, one image amongst hundreds even thousands taken of her through our digital age.
Amongst the women of particular periods Yang paints nude figures that are portrayed to be anonymous. We don’t know what period she is from, what her status is within society all we know is she is a woman of identity through the pure form of her body. The nudes and the dressed ladies all hint at Rimi Yang’s attention to how women’s culture and inner self play equal roles in the overall character of these ladies.
Yang’s curiosity about Eastern and Western art history informs her reasoning to overlap and deconstruct cultures and periods. In context each woman relates to the other as they are all born of Yang’s imagination and references to history and cultures. The universality in her image making is a colourful reminder that despite changing times values and truths tend to remain the same.
Rimi Yang is a Korean artist who now lives in Los Angeles. From her diverse background particularly from studying a summer spent studying fine art in Florence, Italy and studying in California State University,Rimi Yang was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. In 1986 she moved to Ohio where she studied at Bowling Green University, and then in 1991 to Los Angeles where she studied at California State University, Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, and The Otis College of Art and Design. Yang also spent a summer in Italy, studying at the Florence Academy of Art.
Yang is known for her intense enthusiasm for vibrant color which is manifested in both her figurative and her abstract paintings. Celebrating the chaotic emotional duality that exists in life, and in her art, she revels in the confusion mankind creates in its attempt to order the un-orderable and to explain the unexplainable. Adhering to Joseph Campbell’s dictum that the best things in life are those you cannot explain; her paintings are intuitive, instinctive balancing acts of contrasts.
Building up and tearing down of surfaces and images searching for reason where none exists. Searching for that imaginary perfect world of equilibrium on each canvas. Creating a new language with each work, using each as a stepping stone to the next, Yang is dedicated to making each painting better than her last. That Yang’s work is universal in spirit yet personally intimate is evident upon viewing the non-deconstructed whole.
Intensely curious about both Eastern and Western art history, Yang reveals new meaning by deconstructing iconic images of each culture, borrowing images from masterpieces; flower paintings by Fantin Latour, Japanese woodblock of Geisha by Eizan, portraits of madams by Ingres. At the same time, Yang tries to cultivate new methods of painting by mixing different techniques from various styles, escorting viewers down the path to her own unique and mysterious wonderland.
Awards
2007 Residency At Pouch Cover Foundation, Canada in July and August 2007
1988 Marietta Kirschner Wigg Print Award, 36th Annual Undergraduate Art Exhibition, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
1988 First Place in Prints, 36th Annual Undergraduate Art Exhibition, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
Selected Exhibitions
2016 Two Artists Show at Tew Galleries, Atlanta, GA
2016 Solo Show at Joanne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2016 Solo Show at Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2016 Solo Show at Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
2015 Solo Show At Sono Galerie, Norwalk, CT
2015 Solo Show At Couture Gallery, Stockholm
2015 Two Artists Show, Russell Collection, Austin, TX
2014 Solo Show Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
2014 “Isogaba Marare” Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2014 Two Person Show, Sol Art Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2014 “Year of the Horse” Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2014 “Cosmic Dance” Joanne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2014 Solo Show, Blue Rain Contemporary, Scottsdale, AZ
2013 Two Person Show, Tew Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2013 Sol Art Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2013 Couture Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden
2013 Two Person Show @ Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2013 “Seeking Future” JoAnne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2013 Two Person Show @ Blue Rain Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2012 Stricoff Fine Art, NY (2 person show)
2012 Couture Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden
2012 Sol Art, Dublin, Ireland
2012 Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2012 Tew Galleries, Atlanta, GA
2012 Fabien Castanier Gallery, Studio City, CA
2012 Christian Hohmann Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
2011 Russell Collection, Austin, Texas
2011 Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2011 Sol Art Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2011 Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
2010 Tew Galleries, Atlanta, GA
2010 Jean De Merry 'Grand Couture," Melrose Place, Los Angeles, CA
2010 Joanne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2010 Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
“Yin and Yang’ Melanee Cooper Gallery, Chicago, IL
2009 ‘Pointing at the Moon’ Skotia Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2009 Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2009 Joanne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2009 Cella Gallery, North Hollywood, CA
2008 B&K Projects, Copenhagen, Denmark
2008 Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
2008 Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2007 Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
2007 Lowe gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2006 Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Selected group Exhibitions/Art Fairs
2017
--2017 LA Art Show
2016
--Art Source, Dublin, Ireland-Sol Art
--AAF Hampstead, London, England-Sol Art
--AAF Battersea, London England-Sol Art
--LA Art Show
2015
-- Art/Antiques, Dublin, Ireland-Sol Art
-- AAF Bristol England-Sol Art
-- AAF South Korea-Sol Art
- AAF Hamstead Heath, England-Sol Art
-- AAF HongKong-Sol Art
-- AAF Singapore-Sol Art
-- AAF London, England-Sol Art
-- LA Art Show, Los Angeles. CA
2014
-- Art/Antiques, Dublin, Ireland-Sol Art
-- AAF London, England-Sol Art
-- AAF Milan, Italy-Sol Art
-- LA Art Show, Los Angeles, CA
2013
-- Christian Hohmann Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA
-- “Silent Partner” “IH Gallery”, NY
-- LA Art Show, Los Angeles, CA
-- AAF, Battersea, London, England-Sol Art
2012
-- “Femme” Russell Collection Fine Art, Austin, TX
-- “Angelenos” Fellini Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2011
-- Art San Diego, San Diego, CA
-- “ Amarcord” Fellini Gallery, Berlin, Germany
-- San Francisco Art Fair, CA
-- B&K Porjects, Copenhagen, DK
-- AAF NYC, NY
-- AAF London, UK-Sol Art
2010
-- Art San Diego, San Diego, CA
-- “Figure and Field” at David Jones Contemporary Art, Venice, CA
-- “Naked’ Group show at Skotia Gallery, Santa Fe New Mexico
-- Art Hampton, Brigehampton, NY
--- Art Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM
-- Self Portrait Invitation” Group Show at July Nester Gallery, Solt Lake City, AZ, “Self Portrait Invitation”
-- AAF Bristol
-- The Glasgow Art Fair
-- AAF London
-- LA Art Show, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Edinburg Art Fair
-- Art Fair RDS, Dublin
-- AAF Amsterdam
-- Fellini Gallery, Shanghai, China
-- The Asian Pacific Contemporary Art Fair, Shanghai, China
-- Art in Review at Cella Gally, North Hollywood, CA
-- Moura Starr at Pacific Design Center
-- Grand Opening Group Show at Skotia Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
-- AAF Bristol
-- Glasgow Art Fair
-- AAF London
2008 Art London
-- Toronto International Art Fair
-- Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam, Holland
-- Edinburgh Art Fair
-- 'Curious and Curiouser' Galleri Rebecca Kormind, Copenhagen, Denmark
-- Affordable Art Fair, New York, NY
2007 Richmond Hill Gallery, Surrey, England
-- James Baird Gallery, Pouch Cove, NL
-- Affordable Art Fair New York, NY
-- Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
-- Art Miami, Miami, FL
-- VISIONI DELL’UMANITÀ, Roma, Italy
-- Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2006 Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
-- Affordable Art Fair New York, NY
-- Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2005 Stricoff Fine Art, New York, NY
-- Toronto International Art Fair, Toronot, BC
-- Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
-- Art Amo Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
-- Solaris Gallery, West Hollywood, CA
-- Studio18LA, West Hollywood, CA
2004 Don O’Melveny Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
-- Lankershim Art Gallery, North Hollywood, CA
-- Wet Paint at Studio 3 Art & Design Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1997 ‘Aztlan and Beyond’, The Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA
1988 37th Annual Undergraduate Art Exhibition, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
1987 36TH Annual Undergraduate Art Exhibition, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH