ARCH PROJECT is currently presenting artist Duan Yifan’s solo exhibition "Amber", featuring artworks created with lacquer as the medium and some installation pieces.
Resin tears accidentally falling on crawling insects or newly sprouted buds, buried in the earth for thousands of years, form the warm and translucent biological fossil we know today as amber. Artist Duan Yifan insists on using lacquer in his artistic practice, choosing everyday objects for re-creation—such as frequently used mirrors, whose cracks of time are warmly wrapped in lacquer. The creative process of lacquer involves repeated coloring, sanding, and polishing. He attempts to express attention to unremarkable objects through multiple layers and lengthy technical processes. Just like the tiny insects around us, once enclosed in amber, they receive more gazes.
Duan Yifan’s works "Stones" and "Rock Blocks" continue his previous concepts while distinguishing themselves from his earlier easel works. Incomplete stones picked up by the roadside are restored to their original integrity through the ancient kintsugi (golden repair) craft; pebbles of varying sizes are repeatedly coated and wrapped in lacquer to become regular cubic blocks. By using lacquer to place useless objects at the center of attention, he continuously subverts the boundary between meaning and meaninglessness.
