Installation view of Yesiyu Zhao: Wanderers, Harper's, East Hampton.
Photo: Courtesy Harper's, East Hampton
Yesiyu Zhao at Harper’s, East Hampton
A Brooklyn-based artist who was born in China and schooled in New York, where he received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2018 and an MFA from SUNY Purchase College in 2020, Yesiyu Zhao paints gender-fluid figures in culturally symbolic scenes. Mixing mythologies of the East and the West, the emerging artist draws from personal experiences of migration to construct mystical allegories, where warriors and lovers are visually woven into surreal scenes. In the Wanderers exhibition, his first solo show with the gallery, nomadic characters journey through the imaginary landscapes of his canvases in search of marvelous experiences rather than any set destinations, while a pair of poetic sculptural ships place abstracted bodies on ink-brushed sails in ceramic boots and high heel shoes, which indicate his voyage is taking a turn on the wild side—Paul Laster