CHANG YA CHIN

Stories of Stories

May 19th - June 13th, 2024

Thomas Demand is known for constructing elaborate environments made from paper sheets and then photographing his maquettes before he destroys them. For painter Chang Ya Chin, it’s important  that what she depicts have some real life counterpart, which means much of her free time is spent sourcing miniatures. Even at the supermarket examining fruits and vegetables, she thinks of her endeavor as a type of casting call. “I will pick up a pear and marvel at how much personality it’s giving,” she elaborates. The inner life of carrots and nectarines isn’t a topic much discussed these days or superheroes emotional landscapes, for that matter, so here we find Superman getting acupuncture.  A pear traces out the infinity symbol over and over again as an almost Sysophian task, trapped in the closed loop of forever.

Comedy and time travel are other compositional concerns be it a butter stick captaining a loaf of bread with a Swiss cheese sail or the Delorean from “Back to The Future” frying an egg on its car hood. Agency and how it’s exercised is explored in a painting of dumplings with shovels. “By painting the set up, it is a window into this other world where dumplings are digging. The edges of the canvas aren't the borders of that world, it keeps going, as far as you think it goes, or as far as you want to explore it. “ Often her dramas are played out on shelves which serve to highlight an object away from the commonplace, but depending on its positioning -for instance, cantilevered over an edge - can also speak to the spice of peril. Attention is sometimes at the expense of danger.

“When we read books, watch tv shows, read comics, watch movies, we learn about and become attached to all the different characters in these stories,” explains Ya Chin. “We see ourselves as their friends and sometimes we see ourselves in them. They become a part of our lives. Our stories weave together. It's not fan fiction, it becomes fan non fiction.”