(Photo provided to China Daily)
Speaking about her work, Yu, who graduated from CAFA, says: "Living in today's world means we usually know what is happening far away through the media. The events may not seem directly relevant to us but they affect everyone. I hope to be able to portray this."
Since the 1990s Yu has been focusing on the mental wellbeing of young artists.
"I've discovered a lot of heartbreak among this group. Being sensitive, fragile, helpless and honest, they want respect and love but they are often misunderstood. These feelings become the subjects of my creations," she says.
In the painting Shouzhu Daitu (Waiting for gain without pain), a young woman squats on the top of a cluster of traffic lights that are facing in different directions, showing how people get lost in the pursuit of gain.
But Yu softens the scene with a poetic touch: She adds several willow twigs that stroke the woman's body.
In her other paintings, she portrays girls who strike gymnastic poses against backgrounds like sheer cliffs. Through this, she tries to show the tension and feelings of crisis that these characters face.
Zhan Jianjun, an oil painter and Yu's mentor when she was a student at CAFA, says her work reveals her keen, delicate observations and deep concerns for society, even as her skilled, expressive brushwork delights fans.
Yu says that both the optimistic and pessimistic sides of society are reflected in her work. "The core of creation can't be taught. It is something one is born with or learns from life.
"The world has changed fast. But if one is detached from the changes your work lacks depth," she says.
If you go
9:30 am-5:30 pm, closed on Mondays, through Sunday. Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, 8 Huajiadi Nan Jie, Wangjing, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-6477-1575.
