'Eva Yeh: Sculpture in Paper'

August 10 - 17, 2000

[Art Reviews]

Profound pulp

Eva Yeh's multi-dimensional marvels

by Bill Rodriguez
EVA YEH: SCULPTURE IN PAPER. At the University of Rhode Island's Main Gallery through September 30.

"Longing"

The medium is so much part of the message of Eva Yeh: Sculpture in Paper that two things might strike a viewer. First, that had the artist fabricated these quietly stunning works in another material, their deepest dimensions would be missing. Secondly, how remarkable it is that more artists aren't devoting themselves as she has to using the evocative material so extensively.
Exquisite without being precious, paper is the perfect medium for Yeh's sensibility. The fragility of paper can't help but convey vulnerability, especially with the works that correspond to emotions.
The piece in the gallery entryway is quite representative of the efforts and accomplishments within. "Communication" (1991) consists of a large circle, more than three feet in diameter, emerging through a square grid of tissue-covered mesh. The circle is composed of tight rolls of newspaper poked through the small grid squares. Like newspaper headlines that shout or whisper as they push through flimsy resistance into our awareness, the bundles of paper stand at various heights, giving a dramatic graph-like contour under the overhead light.
Lush visual metaphors like that abound. "Desire of Knowledge" (1997) tries to make ineffable thought tangible, this time as mental input. The piece dominates the back wall of the gallery. It forms a large triangle, with scores of colorful small booklets cut from magazine pages dangling from several straight branches placed parallel to the floor. Coveted knowledge is depicted as vivid, fragmented, and contrasting with what is natural. Just so.
Confinement in their frames gives the tension of coiled springs to some of her pieces. "He Who Opens His Heart to Ambition, Shuts It to Tranquility" (1996) consists of rows of rolled packing paper squeezed and jammed in rows. In "Trials and Tribulations" (1997), black and gray fingers writhe and spill out of a small wooden frame, like deep-sea tube worms.
The most absorbing tension in Yeh's work builds up between the meticulous precision of her technique and the inchoate nature of felt response, which is her usual subject matter. Contrasts are Yeh's favorite method of creating tension. "Pain" (2000) has tangles of paper-covered wires, like nerve endings, burst from slits in a dozen smooth poster tubes that hang inert. "Fire" (1996), at once the most visually simple and bold image in the show, has short, wild "flames" of torn red paper arising from a field of linear black corrugations, the latter as orderly as the artist's square box frames or the wire grid of "Communication."

"Adagio"

Despite the recurring edgy imagery, lyrical delicacy overwhelms this show. "Dream" (1996) consists simply of a gently concave glass plate holding loosely tied bundles of Japanese rice paper, so diaphanous they look like a breeze could waft them away. With works named after musical tempos or felt states, the opportunity is most obvious. Rolls of delicate paper fill a free-standing wooden triangular frame in "Longing" (1996). In "Allegros" (1999), coils of red and blue paper cord dance within the frame. These work both as abstract forms and as objective correlatives, as T.S. Eliot put it, to the artist's experiences.
Yeh was born in Shanghai in 1948, studied art in Paris, and since 1974 has lived in Germany, where she has had numerous one-person and group shows. This exhibition was curated by Judith Tolnick, the director of the URI gallery, with support from The Goethe-Institut, of Boston, and Providence's Convergence 2000 International Sculpture Festival. The show will next travel from Kingston to the art gallery at Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wisconsin.
A catalog of Yeh's work is available at the Main Gallery, published for a 1997 exhibition in Germany. In addition to her sculpture, it shows some early paintings that also were depictions of emotional states, such as "Blissfulness" and "Expectation." They were comprised of solid-color fields, strictly demarcated. They contrast starkly with Yeh's transitional paintings done around 1990, which are fluid, calligraphic, and establish depth -- trying to emerge into three dimensions, as her last decade of sculptures accomplish. Projecting that progression into the future is one work in the current show dated 1999-2000. "Andante" is composed of 405 small, narrow-neck bottles wrapped in tea filters, placed in a Plexiglas box and back-lit. Glass and illumination seem to be perfect elements for Yeh to extend her fascination with light, delicacy and feelings yet another level. I certainly hope that whatever future exhibition arises from that exploration will be as convenient to see as the 15 striking works in this not-to-be-missed show.