Mao 2007

Yu Youhan painted 'Mao' with oils, and I can imagine him building up the image slowly, maybe starting with an underpainting, then adding these graphic blocks of color. The colors are muted, soft. The face is divided into planes of gray and pink, with touches of blue and green for the eyes and eyebrows. It feels both iconic and intimate, as if Youhan is trying to get past the image of Mao, to find something more human underneath. I wonder if he was thinking of Warhol's pop portraits while he painted. Both artists take a well known face and flatten it, estrange it through color. What’s interesting to me is how he uses these simple shapes to make a portrait that is at once recognizable, but also kind of weird and unsettling. It's like he's saying, "Yes, this is Mao, but it's also just a painting, just some colors and shapes on a canvas." You know, painting is an ongoing conversation, across time, and inspiring creativity. It embraces ambiguity allowing for multiple interpretations.