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Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

 

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Installation view, Yun-Fei Ji, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, James Cohan, 52 Walker Street, November 17, 2022 - January 7, 2023

painted image of two sunflowers in several pastel shades

YUN-FEI JI

Sunflower Turned Its Back, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

40 x 30 in.
101.6 x 76.2 cm

 

JCG13667

an outdoor scene depciting scattered items such as chairs and wicker baskets

YUN-FEI JI

Everything Moved Outside, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 in.
76.2 x 76.2 cm

 

JCG13671

two people sewing indoors in front of a large pile of fabric

YUN-FEI JI

Sewing / High Noon, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 24 in.
76.2 x 61 cm

 

JCG13677

a depiction of the inside of a colorful, striped, tent with pots and other daily use items within

YUN-FEI JI

Migrant Worker's Tent, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 in.
61 x 61 cm

 

JCG13669

two people sitting outside with their back to the viewer, looking at a pile of personal items

YUN-FEI JI

The Long, Long Wait, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

36 x 24 in.
91.4 x 61 cm

 

JCG13675

a man in a red shirt riding a bike outside while holding something in his hand

YUN-FEI JI

Going Home in High Spirits, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 in.
76.2 x 76.2 cm

 

JCG13670

a painting of scattered personal items in front of a red truck

YUN-FEI JI

The Red Moving Truck, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

36 x 24 in.
91.4 x 61 cm

 

JCG13674

scene depicts a bed outdoors surrounded by several almost unidentifiable objects in paster colors

YUN-FEI JI

Satellite Dish on a Bed, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 20 in.
50.8 x 50.8 cm

 

JCG13668

painting of an elderly man in a light blue coat looking downward

YUN-FEI JI

The Man with Glasses, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 18 in.
61 x 45.7 cm

 

JCG13673

painting of a bedroom with miscellaneous objects and a bunk bed

YUN-FEI JI

Bunk Bed, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 30 in.
61 x 76.2 cm

 

JCG13676

A painted image of a man holding and surrounded by cutdown branches

YUN-FEI JI

Man with Cut Down Trees, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

40 x 30 in.
101.6 x 76.2 cm

 

JCG13666

outdoor setting with a man net to miscellaneous objects looking towards a truck

YUN-FEI JI

The Red Truck is Waiting, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 24 in.
76.2 x 61 cm

 

JCG14027

collection of miscellaneous objects in an outdoor space; a fan covered in cloth lies in the middle

YUN-FEI JI

The Fan with Cloth on It, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 in.
76.2 x 76.2 cm

 

JCG13672

bed covered in clothing items

YUN-FEI JI

The Bed, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 40 in.
76.2 x 101.6 cm

 

JCG13665

a woman in a pink shirt looking around the outdoor setting of her home

YUN-FEI JI

The Woman in the Pink Shirt, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 in.
76.2 x 76.2 cm

 

JCG14026

Press Release

​​James Cohan is pleased to present The Sunflower Turned Its Back, an exhibition of new work by Yun-Fei Ji, on view from November 17, 2022, through January 7, 2023, at 52 Walker Street. This is the artist’s fifth solo exhibition at James Cohan. 

 

For more than two decades, Yun-Fei Ji has employed the flattened space of classical Chinese painting to tell contemporary stories that, while geographically specific, speak to collective human experiences. The artist has an enduring interest in issues of migration and labor, both in the US and China. Each composition is an act of resistance, and a recognition of the resilience of those who have been uprooted in the name of progress. Ji insists that these narratives of displacement and environmental destruction are worth preserving. 

 

For The Sunflower Turned Its Back, Ji shifts from his established medium of ink and watercolor on paper to create vibrant paintings on canvas that possess a quietly evocative intensity. In these works, Ji paints landscapes and interior spaces marked by human presence, often absent of figures themselves. These spaces are makeshift or in transition, suggesting the migration and displacement of the individuals who live in them. When people do appear in these compositions, it is obliquely–their backs to us, depicted in profile, and rarely gazing directly at the viewer. Ji builds this sense of inhabited space through the accumulation of everyday objects that together tell the stories of lives lived in motion. 

 

For inquiries regarding Yun-Fei Ji, please click here.

 

To explore the exhibition in our Online Viewing Room, please click here.

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