 Installation shot 1 |  Installation shot 2 |  Installation shot 3 _ A Dream of Chrysanthemum at Dusk |  Untitled |
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 Gaze |  Installation shot 4 _ Reeds under the Moon |  Installation shot 6 |  Installation shot 9 |
 The Ancient Peony |  Spring |  Installation shot 7 |  Winter |
 Red and Orchid |  Installation shot 8 |  Moon Child |  Installation shot 5 _ Magnolias in a Vase of Night |
Flowers and portraits, as among the oldest and most enduring themes in art, carry significant meaning. Throughout the historical development of art in both the East and the West, these two themes have often intersected and merged. However, in the present day, for artists, they have long been liberated from traditional symbolic systems and endowed with personalized expressions. The rhetorical device of 'using flowers to represent people' transforms public symbols into private language.
Yage's creations are also influenced by ancient Chinese poetry. The ancients often used flowers to express emotions and likened flowers to people — subtlety and restraint have always been the unique hallmarks of Chinese aesthetics. Zhang Chao, a literati figure of the Qing Dynasty, once remarked: 'Plum blossoms inspire nobility, orchids evoke serenity, chrysanthemums suggest wildness, lotuses convey purity, spring crabapples exude charm, peonies radiate grandeur, banana leaves and bamboos embody refinement, autumn crabapples display allure, pines suggest leisureliness, paulownias bring freshness, and willows arouse sentiment.'
In Yage's works, flowers are like people—but far more than that. These plants tenaciously bloom their delicate and beautiful blossoms through the cycle of the seasons. In this process, you discover the secret of time — it originally holds no meaning until the approach of death endows each moment with a value that transcends its own essence. When everything is reborn, you can fully and directly savor the abundance of life: desire, loneliness, fantasy, melancholy, ecstasy, resilience, renunciation, loss, and reunion... Those aspects that you think confine you are actually the most wonderful parts of your life.
Whether it is a flower or a portrait, they are merely the artist's way of sketching a certain moment and aspect of her life. Therefore, the portraits in Yage's paintings always possess an ineffable mysterious quality. The longer you look at them, the more the deeper, more ancient, and more non - human aspects hidden behind these faces will be revealed to you, and they will be presented with absolute candor
This year marks the tenth anniversary of Yage's departure from China to the UK. The span of time is considerable, yet looking back, it already feels like yesterday. The artist 'uses flowers to represent people,' symbolizing none other than herself — lost and then reunited amid the passage of years. 'Everyone has their own forest... Those who are lost are lost, and those who meet will meet again.' She continued to move forward until she walking into a blooming season.
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Dissolving Boundaries, the title of the show, draws inspiration freely from the Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante, particularly the theme of “smarginatura” – a dissolution of identity, where reality, self-perception, and societal structures blur and disintegrate. This notion of instability is central to Guo’s practice; exploring transformation, gender, and impermanence, highlighting the fluidity of form and meaning. Embodiment of change, while floral and skeletal elements symbolize ephemerality and resilience, emphasizing the interplay of life and death.
For the development of the current exhibition, Yage Guo was also immersed in texts and literature such as: Philippa Gregory’s Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, Quaderno Proibito by Alba de Céspedes, Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg or Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. These works examine women and queer individuals navigating identity, independence, and self-definition. They challenge rigid societal norms of womanhood, motherhood, and love, portraying femininity as a fluid, contradictory concept that coexists with masculinity, embodying both harmony and chaos.
In Study of Judith with the Head of Holofernes, she’s reimagining Judith as androgynous – defiant, self-possessed, and unwavering – stripping away the traditional depictions of seduction. The Medusa portrayal challenges the conventional narrative. She is often painted in defeat – her severed head held as a war trophy, grotesque and monstrous. The artist wanted to depict a Medusa who, though vanquished, remains eternal, ambiguous, seductive, and poised for vengeance.
Mythology, much like identity, is fluid and ever-changing. It is inherited, reinterpreted, and molded by the passage of time. I am drawn to these spaces of uncertainty – seeking to fill them with my own interpretations and alterations.
Yage Guo’s Skeleton Series explores materiality, color, and transformation, drawing inspiration from personal loss and the cremation process. This transition from flesh to bone reveals the history within bone white, while the skull and its subtle smile symbolize the return to one’s essential form. In exploring emotional weight through color, various hues represent different themes: deep blues reflect quiet meditation on death and rebirth; purples embody desire; greens reflect eerie stillness and untamed vitality; yellows radiate warmth and the act of waiting; reds reflect pulse with sensuality and intensity. The theme of imaginative narratives, influenced by astrology and tarot, the artist uses these metaphors to translate abstract qualities into vivid imagery.
This approach leads to imaginative reincarnations of figures from literature and history, such as Marguerite d’Anjou (Margaret of Anjou was Queen of England by marriage to King Henry VI from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471) as The Chariot card or a blindfolded centaur representing Sagittarius.
In her four expansive paintings, Guo explores moments of transformation, when identity dissolves and reforms: Veil of Spring symbolizes renewal and memory – a bold flower emerging, only to dissolve back into petals and time – echoing the desire to affirm one’s existence. Reverie embodies departure and disintegration. Unraveling illustrates the fluid coexistence of life and death – an orchid blooming while a dissolving body morphs into bone. Liminal Dance portrays a woman in blue, dancing through empty space – moving between pain and joy, life and death, caught in an eternal cycle of transition.
PM/AM Gallery, London, United Kingdom
9th November 2023 - 18th January 2024
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In the tapestry of fate a glimmer beckoned in the shadows, a sword ablaze with icy light. With a whispering breeze the young androgyne approached, aflame with purpose, and grasped the blade. "A knight", it whispered, as if destiny's decree. With fiery zeal they stood, their spirit soaring, envisioning the blade's triumph over darkness. Time, that silent navigator of destiny's tides, revealed the weight of the sword, the armour melded to his life. "Knight" became their essence. When the wind rose, the young knight would recall the ethereal dream, their spirit untethered, their form liberated from the weight of armour, fleeting and free once more. Yet in their life, unbeknownst to them, fate had silently etched its toll into every choice. - Yage Guo
The Sword suite in tarot links to thought, intellect, beliefs, attitudes, and consciousness, aligning with the elusive element of air and embodying an unseen yet forceful, masculine energy. Yage's inspiration is rooted in the essence of the Swords, her engagement weaving itself into the exhibition's construction. As A.E. Waite once said, "The true tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs."
Within these paintings Yage sketches the young androgynous knight from her written prologue, presenting a series of narratives that symbolically depict a person's connection with the self, objects, and the external world. The knight's story opens contemplation on themes of individualism, romanticism and queerness. The show is grouped into three sections: The Beginning, The Present, and The Future, each embodied by one of three flower paintings. Chrysanthemum Dreams, an inception akin to Lin Daiyu's prophecy in the Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, foretells an allegory of one's own fantastical emotions, steeped in prophetic echoes. The Striped Carnation marks the present, a juncture to gaze back upon, an ode to an anonymous love tale. The Fig symbolises the obscured future, distinct from other blossoms, hinting at maturity.
Across this body of work various elements move in and out of focus - objects of importance, characters, locations that could represent psychological states as much as geographical places. Aligning these is a notion of human transformation, of the body and the spirit. In the work The Performance of A Knight, a figure emerges, their identity and basic personal narrative held at a distance. When embodying a role an individual's persona becomes fragmented, their portrayal of a character shaped by societal empowerment and definition.
The numerous layers of Yage’s work are abounded here. The young figure is fragile yet passionate. They are adorned with symbols of power and perseverance: armour for protection, a sword for assertion, further unveiling a corner of Yage’s imaginative world. We can lean into the framework of this mythical person to recall our own life experiences, and those of others. We too face challenges, we too waved the sword to cut off the thorns. Overcoming them is adaptation, growth and understanding the hardships that this entails - for muscle to build it first has to break.
The figure contemplating this is of non-binary gender, and their armour is reconstructed with the features of ancient male and female armour designs. It appears flowing, its metallic undulation akin to a dress caught in a strong breeze. The ambiguity of the androgynous figure aligns with Yage's aesthetic preferences, drawing from her fascination for 80s and 90s Japanese Shojo manga. The artwork challenges the patriarchal gaze on gender classification, inviting a fantastical embrace of the notions of "femininity" and "masculinity".
Fantasy bridges the historical to now, to the modern day. Recognising the visual tropes of history within the increasing complications of life in the present, Yage works across these interlocking territories, bringing the ageless symbols of one into the fervent contemporaneity of another. An hourglass appears to depict the passage or perhaps this blending of time. In the blue tranquil space of Contemplation we witness a solitary youth caught in a calm, inward observation under the moon, surrounded by morning glories. Vines weave their way out of an arched structure towards the sky, an emancipation. This is a solitary moment of self-reflection and significant self-transition. The show finishes with empty armour left in the grip of vines, the young knight departed from their present role, perhaps towards an ultimate destiny.
From youth to adulthood, we transform. From vulnerable children we become towering, intelligent adults, collecting experiences and overcoming obstacles. Our sense of self multiplies, the spiritual and astral counterparts activating themselves. What centrally characterises Yage’s paintings is an honest depiction of the sentiments and experiences of these developments, their contrasting moments of fear and doubt; of euphoria and exultation.
Text written by Daniel Mackenzie