Merlin Yang

Medium: Graphite Sketches on Paper, Digital Prints on Gauze, Photo Etchings on Paper and Steel Plates, Video Projection, CRT Monitor, Multi-channel Sound

This immersive installation investigates the condition of the Stranger—a figure who observes, enters, and ultimately departs from the immediate environment. Operating between bodily immersion and psychological detachment, the project frames a state akin to lucid dreaming or psychological dissociation, capturing moments when the self seeks to escape or return to a distant home.

At the heart of the installation is a re-edited moving image centered on a featureless, blank human silhouette derived from the artist’s body. Stripped of identifying traits, this figure serves as a universal vessel through which light and time flow. The video transitions from close up, trembling flora symbolizing early perception, through turbulent sea waves and fleeing birds that mark a desire for escape, to an inverted cityscape accompanied by organ scores that signals societal entry alongside an inevitable retreat. Projected directly onto photo-etched steel plates carrying composite stills from the film, the moving image periodically aligns with the etched metal surface, creating a momentary convergence where digital movement and static physical medium lock into a single frame.

The spatial layout functions as a series of architectural thresholds. Near the entrance, large scale gestural life drawings digitally printed on delicate gauze hang suspended alongside graphite sketches on paper. These translucent draperies disrupt immediate line of sight without preventing access, establishing a half-permitted mechanism of viewing. Surrounding side walls display photo etchings, while a CRT monitor rests beneath the metal screen, introducing a vintage, blurred texture that varies the difficulty of perception. Accompanied by a multi-channel soundscape blending heartbeat-like footsteps, radio noise, bird calls, and organ music, the space invites viewers to navigate a shadowed sanctuary of memory, observation, and transit.

Oil and acrylic on canvas, 160*90cm

In the extreme state where only the individual and mortality remain, one realizes an ultimate truth: human beings hold absolute agency over their own choices and will. Confronting death serenely becomes a powerful act of regaining power over life itself.
Visually combining the romantic aura of classical traditions with modernized Symbolist abstraction, the work utilizes a restrained monochromatic palette and a high-impact upward composition. It encapsulates a calm, dignified, and resolute state of mind, offering viewers a direct visual experience of self-determination and strength.