My dreams inspire my my creativity W/ yijun ge: Artist Spotlight

About the Artist

Yijun Ge was born in Xiang Yang, in the province of Hubei, China. She received her Bachelor’s from Hubei Institute of Fine Art. During that time, she taught art workshops for oil painting, charcoal drawing and printmaking, and assisted instructors at Hubei Institute of Fine Art University.

Yijun received her MFA in painting from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, California. Her work included multiple galleries across the U.S, such as Hilliard gallery, Kansas, Blackhawk gallery, Danville, Louisiana Art and Science Museum, Louisiana, Ocean Shore Gallery, Seattle, Fe Gallery, Sacramento. Also, her works has been featured in art magazines in 2021, and won the first place award called “Northwest reflections“ during art competition. At the same year, Featured Muralist ” Mural Artist Takes a Stand on Violence against Asians.” Asian American Press.

And she is actively creating commissions for private and public companies. Currently, she is teaching workshops at Museums and Galleries in San Francisco.

Artist Statement

Yin and Yang is the basis of my visual language, representing passion and calmness. The contrast creates balance and tension, often represented through warm and cool colors. High color contrast is intriguing and is visually more pleasing than low contrast. Dreams are the inspiration for my art. The elements that show up in my dreams such as spiders, sailboats, cats, and dragons help to create a painting’s theme. They are a unique symbolic language representing larger concepts. 

I begin by sketching and move on to under-painting, and at that point I am open to new ideas jumping into my mind. The process always leads to new explorations and discoveries. I explore different substrate including wood panels and canvas. Oil paint is my medium of choice, allowing flexibility and depth of color. I fill in under-paintings with big brushes, and then refine it by adding multiple layers of paint. If I stare at the piece for 20 minutes without wanting to clarify anything, then I know it’s done.

What is your “Dreamland”?

The reason I create art is that I am a dreamer, and sometimes my dreams are strange. For example, I dreamed about Spider, Dragon and Sailboat. I searched for the answer from the book: “The Interpretation Of Dreams” written by Sigmund Freud. Those symbolic languages could potentially mean fear, possibility and a new beginning. He believes that dreams happen for a reason and do not just occur randomly. All these dreams come from our unconscious mind, and it is like a deep well, full of memories and feelings. The memories and feelings have been stored there from the moment of our birth, but our conscious mind has forgotten them. We do not suspect that they are there until unusual experience causes us to dream our dreams. So the mysterious nature of dreams sparked my curiosity to create my art. Creating a dream-like wonderland becomes my interest.

Find the Artist on:

Find Yijun on: 

Website: https://yijunge.squarespace.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sookiecooki/?hl=enAUGUST 22, 2021