In Yu Hong’s paintings, the very nature of time is at stake. Her artistic practice contrasts the weight of history against present banality, merging significant and ordinary time alongside grand narratives and personal memory. These dichotomies aptly coalesce in her colossal, nine-meter-wide triptych The Ship of Fools (2021), in which Yu centers the composition on a vessel which is about to capsize. The painting’s title and theme are borrowed from one of Hieronymus Bosch’s panels in an iconic triptych of the same name from the 1490s, wherein a group of ravenous adults don’t seem to notice the menace that awaits them while they carry on dining. In Yu’s depiction, however, a dozen adolescents cling to the angled bow and sides, the only portion of the ship still protruding from the icy waves. The painting depicts a jagged, icy coastline, yet appears outside a specific place and time as the cause of the drama remains unknown. A great allegorical struggle thus commences as the young figures cling to the sinking, rusted vessel. Their outcome appears uncertain, evoking the future of their entire generation. 

Born in Xi’an, Yu enrolled at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing to study oil painting in 1984, a turning point in China’s cultural, political, and economic reforms. By the 1990s she began portraying China’s youth, including a series of works in which young adults seemed to be caught mid-stride or floating midair. Set against colorful backdrops suggestive of psychological landscapes, such as in Bright Spring Days (1995), the figures are detached from any earthly preoccupations. An earlier piece, Chinese Princesses (1992), depicts several young girls in red dresses coyly standing or floating among bright yellow, purple, and red peonies, possibly representing a fragment from a memory or a dream. Here, the girls’ eyes are full of excitement and their faces are plastered with mischievous smiles. Indeed, such was the sense of optimism which infused the cultural world of Beijing in that historical moment when change felt possible. At the time, Yu was 29 years old.