Va savoir

by Yuchen

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18th–19th October 2025

Opening Eve: Friday, 17th October, 6–8pm

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Yuchen is a London-based artist working across painting, ceramics, and printmaking. She holds a BA in Graphic Design from Chelsea College of Arts (2024). While her academic training introduced her to image-making within practical and service-oriented frameworks, she gradually turned toward a more intuitive and self-directed artistic practice. This led her to pursue study at Royal Drawing School, where she deepened her artistic engagement with perception and materiality.

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Va savoir is a series of portraits inspired by the divergent critical readings of Edvard Munch’s Love and Pain (Vampire), based on the shifting relational dynamics in Jacques Rivette’s film Va savoir (2001). Each painting presents a pair of characters with minimal context, inviting viewers to question whether they witness tenderness, conflict, or something altogether different. Drawing from the film's central idea, that people themselves are the mystery, this project explores how interpersonal relationships are revealed and misunderstood in portraits devoid of context.

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Yuchen’s work is grounded in attentiveness to natural processes, bodily awareness, and spontaneous response. Moving fluidly between figuration and abstraction, she explores fragmented narratives and perceptual ambiguities through varied media. Her imagery often emerges from direct observational and emotional experiences, and unfolds through processes that privilege responsiveness over control. She approaches image-making as an evolving field rather than a resolved form.