‘A body’s immaterial. It’s a drawing, a contour, an idea.’ - Jean-Luc Nancy, Corpus.
YY9 Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Ivy Ma—“Hardly Enter, Already gone”. In this exhibition, Ma presents a series of figure drawings featuring bodies without head or with partial parts only which she started working on as early as 2008 in New York City. With the use of the simplest and most natural approach to connect with the audience, this series of fragment-like experiment drawings captures the very spontaneous feelings and sentiments of her life.

Driven by emotions, Ma drew several hundred figures on small cards, each one had the quality of little and simple phrase. These artworks, with no explicit selection of forms and materials, were created by Ma according to her sensation, especially those emotions when her life was falling apart. Later, the combination of text from Virginia Wolf’s The Waves with the partial figures hence creates a lyrical depth in Ma’s work. To her, such a form of creation seems to be an everyday practice, or simply a performance of her body, that will never complete as things happening in life are never-ending rehearsals.

This exhibition condenses Ma’s mental sensation by transforming those simple phases and small drawings into a reflection of life journey.