Mind Set Art Center is delighted to present, in the midsummer of 2025, the works of young artist Yen Yu-Heng in a Project Room exhibition titled "Through the Veil of Light ". The show is set to feature fifteen of new works created over the past six months that explore optical effects of overexposure and defocus in photography. By capturing these unusual optical characteristics with his paint brush, the artist reinterprets familiar everyday scenes from a fresh perspective through the transition between two different mediums. Yen is currently pursuing his MFA at the National Taiwan University of Arts. His works emit a poetic blend of tranquility, warmth, subtlety and nostalgia, fascinating both the viewer’s mind and emotions. The exhibition is scheduled to run from August 16 through September 20, with a reception set at 5:00 on open day to which we cordially invite your presence.
Born in 2001, Yen Yu-Heng's youth is shaped by the digital technology and internet landscape of the 21st century. Yet unlike many of his peers who embrace virtual worlds and trend-driven art, this 24-year-old artist has developed a fascination with the analog visual language of 20th-century photography and black-and-white cinema. This unexpected affinity explains the inspiration of his work, as reflected in his artist statement, “It all began with when I accidentally shot an overexposed, out-of-focus photograph through glass with a film camera. It made me contemplate the meaning of this accident, because the photo, with its flaws, would be considered a failure by conventional standards. It was precisely the abnormal visual characteristics that fascinated me, inspiring me to depart from my previous works that focused on expressing the immediate emotions in the moment of observation, and to enter this current phase where I begin to explore ways of expressing these accidents visually, to make my paintings appear unfamiliar and exotic, to interpret everyday scenes from new perspectives.”
Artist Statement
It all began when I accidentally shot an overexposed, out-of-focus photograph through glass with a film camera. It made me contemplate the meaning of this accident, because the photo, with its flaws, would be considered a failure by conventional standards. It was precisely the abnormal visual characteristics that fascinated me, inspiring me to depart from my previous works that focused on expressing the immediate emotions in the moment of observation, and to enter this current phase where I begin to explore ways of expressing these accidents visually, to make my paintings appear unfamiliar and exotic, to interpret everyday scenes from new perspectives.
The works on display at this exhibition represent an extension of my earlier reflections. The paintings depict subject matters gathered from photos captured in daily life. The optical flaws in those photos, be it slight overexposures, blurs, shaky compositions, fading colors and reflections, are all transformed and reinterpreted through the pictorial language. The brushwork aims to convey the feelings evoked by different light qualities, such as the warmth conveyed through hotter light colors or the sense of distance implied through colder color temperatures. By deliberately changing and accentuating the original state of the lights, I try to capture these optical characteristics in order to amplify, expand and enhance the sensory perceptions that they trigger. The resulting paintings ooze a kind of tranquil atmosphere and leisurely pace that invites the viewers to immerse themselves for longer durations.