Packaged within Ye Sen’s work are a series of antitheses: complexity and simplicity; traditional and contemporary; connection and independence; East and West.

Ye Sen’s works are as remarkable for their restraint as for their intricacy. Astonishingly, each of his sculptures begins as a single log. By gradually extracting material, the artist reveals independent objects complete with their interconnecting chains, all born of the same wood and never having existed in isolation from one another. The homogeneity of each sculpture’s origin is often a surprising revelation to the viewer, notwithstanding that the clean, unadorned surfaces make no attempt to disguise the uniform materiality of the wood.

Ye Sen’s body of work is informed by traditional Chinese philosophies and carving techniques, through which the wood itself expresses its potential to the artist. Venerable Chinese craftsmen considered the materials with which they worked to possess unique voices, which when observed, revealed their artistic possibilities. These traditional concepts are demonstrated by Ye Sen’s obvious affinity with wood, but he also overlays the voice of the material with his own notions concerning contemporary society. The carved chains, which both enable and constrain movement, are symbols of the restrictions that society and personal habits enforce upon our thoughts, particularly in cross-cultural contexts. But they also represent connection, in the sense of our shared humanity.

The concept of shared origins, fed into the human construct of East and West, is particularly apparent in Seated: China – West. A Ming dynasty round-back armchair and a Victorian period palace chair take up their metaphorical roles in opposing corners. Each is a culturally distinct manifestation of the same object made from the same material. The length of chain permits distance between the two chairs, but also constrains them within an ambit. Facing each other directly, with curiosity or perhaps suspicion, they are familiar and yet unfamiliar with one another’s existence. Also chained within the work are remnant slabs of the log from which each chair was created, serving as a persistent reminder of their origin and interconnectedness.

Brian Wallace, Curator

-Red Gate Gallery

Image: © Ye Sen
Courtesy of the artist and Red Gate Gallery