Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA), Costa Mesa, California
Continues through May 25, 2025
February 22, 2025
Walking into Su Yu-Xin’s exhibition is to enter a magical display of dozens of large, colorful semi-abstract paintings. Yet look closely and the works evoke a variety of ephemeral scenes, including clouds moving through the sky, sunlight reflecting large landscapes, volcanoes in action, rain-soaked mountain scenes, exotic fires smoldering beneath the earth, mushroom shaped clouds emanating from bombs that were just dropped, and more.
Even more impressive are the descriptions of the materials and techniques used to create these artworks, along with the artist’s intentions of what her imagery will hopefully convey to viewers. Materials in her paints — that she laboriously collects from disparate parts of our planet — include earthbound matter derived from soil, natural ores, shells, corals, semiprecious stones and plants, all applied to flax-based canvasses. To create her various homemade pigments, which number in the hundreds, Su gathers raw materials from landscapes that she says have undergone transformation. This ranges widely, from coastal and volcanic terrains to railways at “precarious places in the Pacific regions.”
Su has great reverence for the pigments that she makes and uses in her artworks, believing that colors carry the weight of their histories. Far more than just paint, embedded in them are legacies of trade and extraction, and with that an implicit narrative of human exploitation. Her flax-infused canvasses facilitate diffusion and the random spreading out of the paints, which she welcomes and has increasingly mastered.
Su Yu-Xin was born in Hualien, Taiwan in 1991, and studied Chinese ink painting and Japanese Nihonga painting in Taipei. She earned an MFA from London’s Slade School of Fine Art. Her techniques have evolved gradually, having been derived from her studies that may be centered on aesthetics but go well beyond, and also from her sheer creative talent, which transcends the narrowness of traditional painting practices. She regards her imaginary landscapes as, “dynamic, interconnected systems, where sky, earth and substance are fluidly entwined,” creating an expansive approach to our environment that can be seen in the body of work that makes up “Searching the Sky for Gold.”
The titles of Su’s artworks are provocative, while reflecting the images they describe. “Heaven’s Sigh (Mount Merapi)” (2024) depicts a cone-shaped volcano, painted with swirling strokes, with the black and red hues fashioned from volcanic rocks and soil. The volcano is enhanced by a thin veil of cloud in greenish metallic tones.
“A Detonation, and the Time It Spent with the World (Atomic Bomb Test, New Mexico)” (2024) renders a mushroom-shaped cloud from an A-bomb, an image painted and photographed ad nauseam. What sets it apart is the addition of the falling debris and dying flames that occur moments after the bomb’s detonation. The colors of this painting, suggestive of the deadly forces unleashed from the bomb, are deep red from cinnabar and orange-yellow from the sulfide-based mineral realgar. It is among the best examples of how media and the depicted image resonate synergistically.
“Heart of Darkness (Underground Burning, Utah)” (2024) is a vivid interpretation of coal smoldering underground so energetically that the flames — painted with red, yellow and black pigments derived from realgar, sulfur, and cinnabar — come to life, behaving like hungry serpents.
“Dust Crown (Mount St. Helens)” (2024) is an illustration of an eruption at Mount St. Helens in Washington, an event that in 1980 reshaped the northwest landscape and produced the gemstone known as Helenite, which resembles an emerald. The eruption is portrayed here is an exotic dancing figure, while research reveals that the pigment used for the piece is that selfsame Helenite.
“Strange Remedy (Mount Kuju Hot Spring)” (2024) is a landscape style painting, illustrating the power of curative waters, based on Buddhist teachings. Employing the minerals malachite and chrysocolla produce the bluish mud undertones, to which is added the element known as orpiment, along with soil, that produces a layer of yellow that floats on the top of the mud. The artist employs materials that are both aesthetically illuminating and which have a therapeutic effect.
Su Yu-Xin’s paintings are amalgams of her well-trained artistry, combined with her profound knowledge of earth, air, fire and water, the four base elements recognized in the ancient world. Her empathetic use of the earth elements that she collects are crucial to what distinguishes this exhibition. To immerse yourself in them is to experience a foretaste of the kind of harmonious world that we yearn to inhabit.
Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009.
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