Oil on canvas

125 x 108 cm. 49 1/4 × 42 1/2 in.

Titled in English, signed in Chinese and pinyin and dated on the reverse; signed in pinyin on the left of the canvas edge
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the artist

Time's Fickle Dance, Misty Reverie
The Azure Pool of Yuan Yuan

“The concept of ‘alternate time' and understanding the interplay between eternity and the present moment constitute the essence of my artistic creation.”
——Yuan Yuan

Born in 1973 and graduating from the Department of Oil Painting at Hangzhou China Academy of Art in 2008, Yuan Yuan, with architectural spaces as his creative subject, depicts vivid yet deserted scenes that evoke immense visual impact, reminiscent of rapidly constructed and abandoned urban spaces amidst the rapid development of the world economy. Drawing upon the Chinese ink painting techniques he encountered since his secondary school days, he crafts enigmatic play of light and shadow, conveying the delicate emotions human beings invest in their living environments through lyrical and figurative paintings. Within the frozen moments of time, he unveils the tension between the eternal and the ephemeral, reality and illusion, arousing widespread resonance. Soon after graduation, Yuan Yuan achieved great recognition by being awarded the “Luo Zhongli Scholarship” and subsequently receiving attention from Shanghai Xiaoping Gallery and Hong Kong Kiang Malingue Gallery, making a name for himself on the international stage. His works have been exhibited in venues such as He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum in Berlin, and Palazzo Terzi in Italy, and have been collected by institutions including White Rabbit Gallery in Australia, POMERANZ in Vienna, and DSL in Paris.

Yuan Yuan possesses an ardent fascination with the repetitive patterns, and “mosaic” stands as the epitome of his distinctive artistic lexicon. From the inception of his Swimming Pool series in 2009 to his solo exhibition at the illustrious Palazzo Terzi in Italy in 2018, mosaic motifs have consistently permeated his creative odyssey. Cool I am representing an early and emblematic manifestation within Yuan Yuan's explorations of the Swimming Pool Series. Immediately upon its unveiling, it was cherished and safeguarded by a prominent private collector in Asia for over a decade, rendering its forthcoming debut at this autumn's auction a truly extraordinary and rare event.

Echoes of Time's Vanishing Whispers

Cool I am is replete with rich details, where a myriad of small blue mosaic tiles in the pool meticulously forms a realm of their own. Transitioning from deep indigo to shimmering light blue, they exhibit the myriad transformations of the same hue within the gradient when refracted by light. The grid-like gaps between the mosaics and even the worn edges are rendered with an ultra-realistic technique that approaches the limits of human perception, capturing the traces of time. Furthermore, Yuan Yuan creatively employs Chinese painting techniques, diluting oil pigments and layering them, blurring the sharp edges of the mosaic and painting exquisite white fibers at the bottom of the pool, along with scattered star-like dots, evoking a dreamlike scene of sunlight piercing through the water. As art critic Zhang Yuling aptly describes, Yuan Yuan's artworks are “elaborate scenes of a dream.”

At the centre of the composition, there is a gathering of swiftly moving white dots forming a splash in the shape of the Chinese character “大” (big). It captures the fleeting moment of someone diving into the pool, presenting an eternal memory in a dramatic instant, embodying the traces of human existence within an empty space. In that moment, the boundaries between the past and the present, realism and expression, become blurred, as if yesterday is relived, and precious recollections engraved in time remain indelible. Compared to Yuan Yuan's more recent works featuring static scenes, Cool I am focuses on depicting the dynamic freeze-frame of fluid bubbles with a concise composition. It evokes a desire in viewers to immerse themselves in the pool, to meditate and heal in a more romantic and lyrical manner. In the water, people return to the embrace of the source of life, focusing on a dialogue with themselves through exhalation and inhalation, seeking their authentic selves.

Price estimate:
HKD 130,000 –180,000
USD 16,700 – 23,100