Yung, Kay-Oi Jay

BA (Hons) 1:1, Fine Art, University of Dundee, 2006
BA (Hons) 2:1, French Language and Literature, Sheffield University, 2006

Interdisciplinary, video-sculpture, painting

My cross-disciplinary approach confronts the spectator with a powerfully playful and scatological reassessment of identity as constructed by cultural institutions. Propelled by my own displacement as BBC (British Born Chinese), whilst teaching in China, 2002, unable to speak Mandarin, a student’s bemusing ‘banana’ accusation “Yellow on the Outside white on the inside” has spurred me to reconsider my own identity and how I function within particular cultures. This feeds into a conceptual process of sonic visual and plastic construction that seeks to eradicate rigid systems of logic and categorization.

My video pieces, installations and sculptures move action beyond the canvas, opening up new orders and ways of looking. In glorious Technicolor, highly laboured, they are all manifestations of an obsession with my “blob” aesthetic; a congealing of all matter into the order-chaos of life itself. I lure the viewer beyond the crass hi-glossy living of surface logic to this mutative underbelly. Each work expulses and exposes the making process.

Ultimately, I seek to create a multiplitious identity, which may be arrived at through the viewer’s own memory and participation. This is why I place great emphasis on an interactive approach for the participant. Interaction may entail navigating oneself through a gallery space animated by performance, sculpture and video(Sonic Blob, 2006), or for a child to amplify objects through a homemade keyboard (Scrap exhibition, 2005), or providing artist tools for the viewer to draw directly into my own creations, SinopSis, 2004

Prior to pursuing my passion for art, I studied French at Sheffield University and worked in London PR for clients ranging from Microsoft to Warner Brothers. I graduated with a first in my BA (Hons) in Fine Art, The University of Dundee, May 2006.

In January 2006, Clive Gilman, designer, Fact, Liverpool and director, Dundee Contemporary Arts selected me for the Professional Artist Development Scheme, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester. I am now exhibiting on a local and international level, from Intermedia Gallery, Glasgow, Ganghut, Melbourne, Primo Piano, Italy, The Whitechapel Gallery, London and upcoming Florence Biennial. Commissions also include Liverpool Biennial, 2006 and to write a weblog regarding my practice for established arts publication, Artist Newsletter (A-N), I cover featured as A-N’s June’s Future Forecast, 2006.

Invited by artist Graham Fagen, I have just completed an artist residency at Cove Park, Scotland and will take part in a collaborative Heinrich Boll residency, Achill Island, Ireland, 2007.

2006
Doodles and Bloblettes, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester
2005
Fortune 888, University of Dundee, Cooper Gallery
Self, Channel 4 Website
The Opium Room, Lower Foyer Gallery, University of Dundee

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2006
Wonderful Ephemeral, PrimoPiano, Lecce, Italy
Bracket This, Arena Gallery, Liverpool Biennial
Trampoline/Distribution- Arena Gallery, Liverpool
Transvoyeur Live Art, View Two Gallery, Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool
Gene Culture, Egg Space, Liverpool
The Neatline, Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh
The Wormhole Saloon III, The Whitechapel Gallery, London
Lands of Freedom, University of Maryland, USA
Ganghut, Melbourne, Australia
Members Show, Generator Projects, Dundee
Student Show, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2005
Scrap, Intermedia Gallery, Glasgow, Collaboration
Dundee Radiology Art Exhibition, Ninewells
Self, McManus Galleries, International touring exhibition
Town Planning, Dundee, curating urban art event: installation-live poetry
Scottish Students On Screen, Glasgow
2004
Futureshorts Screening, Bestival, Isle of Wight

AWARDS, SCHOLARSHIPS & COMPETITIONS

2006
William Armstrong Davidson Prize
The Alan Woods Memorial Prize
PAD Scheme, Chinese Centre of Arts, Manchester

RESIDENCIES

2006
Cove Park, Scotland
2006-2007 Heinrich Boll Foundation, Achill Island, Ireland