Art Beatus Gallery is pleased to present 'Happiness' opening April 17 and running through to June 6, 2003, featuring works by artists Rene Yung, Kumiko Yasukawa, Li Shuang and Yang Yi. An artist discussion will commence at 5pm to be followed by an evening reception from 6pm to 8pm.

What does Happiness mean to us? For some, 'Happiness' can be about freedom of life, having an identity of our own or being allowed to express our emotions without reservation. For others, 'Happiness' can be fleeting; a momentary feeling of exhiliration which leaves us desiring more. In our current exhibition, we hope to discover the meaning of 'Happiness' in the artworks of our four female artists, each with their own history and life experience.

Born in Tokyo in 1975, Kumiko Yasukawa has lived and worked in Vancouver since 1993. Her process combines traditional and digital photographic techniques to arrive at an aesthetic that is both ancient and futuristic. Her most recent KUKI project follows her previous series MIZU, and is part of a continuing project that explores universal elements to find renderings of the invisible - in fact making the invisible visible.

Li Shuang grew up during the cultural revolution in China. Ten years of thought control, austerity and forced revolutionary fervor followed, affecting her painting; a clear demonstration of how artists working under the restraint of an authoritarian government were expected to censor themselves. Combining elements from rich Chinese painting traditions with a thoroughly modern sensibility, Li's works did not fit with the government approved artistic mold of tractor-happy peasants basking in the glow of Mao's wisdom. In 1981, Li was arrested and served a two-year sentence for re-education in a prison outside of Beijing. Li currently lives and works in Paris.

Yang Yi lives in Beijing, teaching fine art at Gui Yang Normal University. She started with traditional Chinese painting but has since moved to painting on silk. A light and delicate material, silk is an important product in the history and culture of China and has become just as integral to most of Yi's recent works. Her intricately detailed paintings often reflect a blending of the traditional with the modern movement of Chinese avant-garde.

Installation artist Rene Yung was born in Hong Kong and currently lives and works in San Francisco. Most of her work focuses on being, memory and place. She works mostly in installation form because she likes the way it allows for discourse between categories and boundaries in a way similar to life experiences. She is interested in how meaning is imbedded in the structure of language and its ramification in the visual form of artwork. Deeply influenced by Western conceptual thinking, Yung's recent works have been exploring a visual language aimed at a reframing and a revisioning of the operational aesthetics in diasporic art practices. She is interested in creating a visual vernacular characterized by the fluidity, simultaneity and complexity of global cultural contiguity.

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MIZU (#3)
Kumiko Yasukawa

With the Spring Wind Come the Swallows
Li Shuang


Tulip 1
Yang Yi