This interview was initially published by Art Alpha.I'll tell you part one and part two. This time we will bring you the first part.

Yang Yongliang《Vanishing Mountains》2024-2025, 150.0 × 300.0 cm, Oil on canvas

‘No matter where we are, the landscape in our eyes is still, to some extent, a reflection of our inner landscape.’

--Yang Yongliang

Yang Yongliang's art begins with nostalgia and a sense of the changing times. He constructs an urban landscape with images, injecting the texture of modern civilization into the brushstrokes of oriental literati paintings, showing the paradoxical landscape of rapid urban development.

In Vanishing Mountains, he puts aside the calm calculation of digital images and returns to the ‘sense of touch’ which he considers to be extremely important, releasing more direct and pure feelings in the way of painting.

“Images are rational, while paintings are sensual that need to vent my feelings from time to time." said Yang Yongliang. He tries to reshape the landscape at the intersection of ancient and modern East and West.

If Chinese landscape painting is no longer bound by the constraints of black and white and monochrome, what sparks will collide if it can cross time and space and start a dialogue with Impressionist and Modernist masters? ‘If Zhao Mengfu ( pioneering calligrapher and painter of the Yuan Dynasty, known for blending traditional styles with his own innovations) saw Monet's water lilies, what kind of innovation would it make him want to try?’

The exhibition Vanishing Mountains was born out of such thoughts. Yang Yongliang expands the boundaries of Chinese landscape on canvas, creating a subtle resonance with Western abstract art. When we gaze at the parts of his works, we will find that the overlapping brushstrokes and flowing colors still maintain the same spiritual theme with his early video works - time, memory, city and nature, which are reproduced, continued and changed in different media.

The appearance of his hometown may have faded away in reality, but it still stands in the artist's heart, being redrawn and constantly retrieved.

Yang Yongliang

On the occasion of the opening of Yang Yongliang's latest exhibition Vanishing Mountains at White Stone Gallery Beijing, Art Alpha sat down with the artist to talk about his journey from Shanghai to New York, from video to painting. How to root his own memories and emotions in his creations amidst the fast-running pace of development.

Shanghai Street to New York Chinatown: The View from the Eye is the View from the Heart

Yang Yongliang Solo Exhibition “Vanishing Mountains” opening scene at Whitestone Gallery Beijing

-Your work has always been characterized by photography and digital art, but this time your new work takes the form of paintings, which makes the viewer feel a clear change. What is the thinking behind this shift?

Yang: Indeed, in my past creative career, most of my works were in the form of combining photography and digital art, an approach that was intricately constructed and adjusted within my rational framework.

But at the same time, the digital way of creation also creates a sense of distance between my body and the work, as each step of it - from shooting to computer compositing to printing out - is relatively indirect. I have been searching for a more direct way to connect with my body and emotions, and painting is just such a medium.

As a matter of fact, I have never really turned away from painting. As early as when I was a student, my artistic training was based on traditional painting. Painting has always been in a more private state. For this exhibition, I decided to make these paintings public, not only as a challenge to myself, but also to explore more possibilities of artistic language.

I think the immediacy and uncontrollability of painting - such as the random changes of brush strokes, the strength of the hand, and the stacking of paint - give the works a stronger vitality, which is exactly what is missing in digital creation.

Whitestone Gallery Beijing

-What is the difference between your digital works and paintings in terms of creation?

Yang: The core of painting lies in the sense of touch, the layers of brushstrokes, and the changes in texture, which are difficult to be presented in digital art. In my paintings, I will put special emphasis on these parts of the sense of touch, such as strengthening the expression of the brushstrokes, so that the thickness of the oil paint, the wetness and dryness, and the way of using the oil are all more layered.

On the contrary, if it's just flat paint, it's no different from the effect of digital output and loses the meaning of painting itself.

Therefore, I hope that the works can show more personality and texture in terms of brushstrokes and texture, rather than becoming flat.

Yang Yongliang, Imagined Landscape Series and Landscapes after the Old Masters Series 2022, at Whitestone Gallery Taipei

-Your paintings are rich in color, whereas your earlier works were mainly in black and white. How did the change in color come about?

Yang Yongliang: In the past, my works were mainly in black and white because I tried to focus the audience's attention on the layers and structure of the picture by removing the colors, so as to make the cityscape present a kind of surreal visual feeling. In this exhibition, I prefer to use more intuitive colors to express my emotions.

This is inextricably linked to my experience of living in New York. During my years in New York, I felt the strong impact of colors that the city has to offer. The architecture, the street art, the nature and even the evening sky are all more visually striking than in the cities I have lived in the past.

I was struck by the evening sunsets in New York, with their layers of pinks, oranges and purples. This color inspiration naturally blended into my paintings.

Yang Yongliang Solo Exhibition ‘Glows in the Night’ Hong Kong Art Central, 2023

Chinatown is part of a series that I completed last year, and is a relatively new endeavor for me. Although formally it seems like my previous works, the main change is from black and white to color.

But the biggest difference is that this time I completely abandoned the Chinese architectural elements, and all the buildings in the work were photographed in New York. Whether it's those tall buildings, or the little pointy houses you can see, or even the tiniest architectural details, all of them are from New York, especially the street scenes in Chinatown.

Yang Yongliang, Chinatown, 60.0 × 60.0 cm, 2024, Giclee Print

Of course, it's not just a change in color. Different cities bring me completely different feelings. In the past, when I was working in China, my works were mostly in black and white, with fewer attempts at color. Although I have started to introduce some colors in the Imagined Landscape series, the colors are still light, and the overall visual tone is still biased towards black and white.

In this creation, color is no longer just an embellishment but has been the dominant color from the very beginning, and has become the core of the conception and production.

I also made special considerations in the choice of architecture. I grouped together buildings of the same era, with the same color tone and material, to keep them in visual harmony. 

Yang Yongliang, Waterfall Ed. 2/7, Single Channel 4K Video, 8'00”, 2023

Architecture in New York is very different from urban architecture in China. In China, most of the skyscrapers have been built intensively in the past 20 to 30 years, so they are relatively uniform in style and will not look out of place no matter how they are combined. However, the architectural history of New York spans over hundreds of years, with different architectural styles from different periods intertwined and co-existing, so a random collage would look very incongruous.

Therefore, during the creative process, I had to organize and categories them in the early stages, placing buildings of different eras and styles together, so that they would achieve a sense of organic unity visually, rather than being disorganized.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, the world became greyer and the depressing environment made me aware of the impact of color on mood. At that time, I began to experiment with adding some warmer tones to the images. Gradually, the proportion of colors became higher and higher, and the grey tones in the images were replaced by brighter colors. This transformation is not only a visual change, but also an emotional release.

Yang Yongliang, 《Dwelling in the Mountains》 At the exhibition Vanishing Mountains, Whitestone Gallery Beijing, 2025

-How has the move from Shanghai to New York affected and changed your artistic expression?

Yang: My previous works were basically created in Asia or China because they were more about my personal growth experience. As a member of the generation that grew up in the suburbs of Shanghai, I have personally experienced the great changes in Chinese society. From childhood to adulthood, I have witnessed the changes in my hometown, and I have also felt the irreversible changes of the big time in small places.

My hometown when I was a child was a place with the characteristics of a water town, ancient and unique. With urbanization, these sights have disappeared little by little, and today's suburbs are almost uniform, filled with modern buildings formatted as neat and tidy.

I have reflected deeply on such changes - what have we really lost in the process of rapid development? Economic growth and improved living conditions are important, but at the same time, have we lost something irreplaceable? Perhaps not everyone cares about these fading details, but for me, it is very important.

The memories of my childhood are nowhere to be found. When I return to the place where I used to live and find that every familiar brick and tile no longer exists, I will feel a profound sense of absence, like I can no longer find my way home. This sense of loss deeply affects my creativity and makes me constantly think about the relationship between human beings and the environment, urban development and cultural memory.

Yang Yongliang, Vanishing Mountains

Vanishing Mountains, Whitestone Gallery Beijing, 2025

Later, when I came to New York, although the way of creation remained the same, the core of expression changed. From a critical perspective in the past, I gradually shifted to viewing a western city with an eastern vision.

In New York, I can still find the imprint of China, or rather, a Chinese visual experience. What really prompted me to start this series was a chance moment - in Battery Park, I looked up and saw a towering building, and when I looked at it from a certain angle, its volume and structure instantly reminded me of Fan Kuan's ‘Travelers among Mountains and Streams’.

This moment made me realize that no matter where we are, the landscape in our eyes is still, to some extent, a reflection of our inner landscape, and that our perception of the objective world varies according to individual experience. It also reminded me that it is often said that everyone has a New York of their own in their heart.

Yang Yongliang，Battery Park Ed. 6/15 , Giclee Print

178.0 × 100.0 cm, 2024

-Both are cosmopolitan cities, what are the differences between Shanghai and New York?

Yang: There are similarities between New York and Shanghai in some aspects, but in comparison, New York has a stronger sense of fragmentation and a sharper contrast within the city.

For example, in New York, you can stand on Wall Street with its many skyscrapers and feel the ultimate modern city atmosphere, but then just a few moments later, you can enter an area full of nature, like Central Park, as if you were jumping from a steel jungle to an oasis in an instant. And a few steps further on, you enter the neon-flashing, crowded Times Square.

This strong contrast exists in Shanghai as well, but in New York its sense of conflict is magnified several times over, making the city even more dramatic as it switches between spaces.

While in China my work may be somewhat critical, in New York it is more of a discovery and reinvention. The environment here pushes me to find new ways of expression rather than just staying in the existing perspective. This is not only a change in the method of creation, but also a change in mindset.

Human Memory and Disappearing Cities

Yang Yongliang, Dwelling in the Mountains, 2024-2025, 250.0 × 800.0 cm, Oil on canvas

- This exhibition is titled Vanishing Mountains, the name seems to have a kind of continuity, can you talk about its origin?

Yang: The name is indeed related to my previous works. Back in New York, I shot a short experimental film called ‘Vanishing Shore’, and when I was sorting out the images, I found that some of the images were very similar to the mood of this painting. Both deal with the theme of ‘disappearance’, exploring the ever-changing relationship between man and nature, and man and the city.

Therefore, I chose the name Vanishing Mountains as a response to my past works and as a continuation of the timeline.

In fact, the concept of ‘disappearance’ has always been present in my creations. When I was living in China, my works focused more on the traditional culture that disappeared during the process of urbanization, while in New York, my focus shifted to the relationship between human memory and space.

Vanishing Mountains is not only a physical disappearance, but also a fading in memory, which points to both reality and a certain sense of loss on the psychological level.

Yang Yongliang, Dwelling in the Mountains (partial)

ーThere has always been a fusion of Eastern and Western visual languages in your works, how do you balance this relationship in this painting?

Yang: I have been thinking about how to create new possibilities for traditional Chinese painting in a modern context. The way of viewing Chinese landscape painting is different from that of Western painting, which emphasizes ‘roam-able, livable, overlooking-able’, an immersive experience rather than a purely static image.

However, for the contemporary audience, this way of viewing may be a bit distant. Therefore, I try to make it more in line with the visual habits of modern people by deconstructing the composition of traditional landscape paintings.

For example, I enlarged the parts of the traditional landscape painting to make it show a structure like abstract painting. At the same time, I use some compositional methods of western painting, such as the use of post-impressionist color blocks and expressionist style brushstrokes, so that the work finds a new balance between tradition and modernity. In addition, I have also incorporated a certain ‘futuristic sense’ into the images, so that the viewer can feel both the traditional flavor and the impact of contemporary visual language.

Yang Yongliang, Pink Dawn, Oil on canvas250.0 × 200.0 cm, 2024-2025

The part 2 is here, please continue to read. At the same time, you are enjoy the exhibition featuring the evolving works of Yang Yongliang.

YANG YONGLIANG: Vanishing Mountains