Ingrid Yan

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“To me, a step into Surrealism could indeed be a closer practice towards Realism. Hallucinations sometimes bring people much closer to what’s real. When I fall asleep, I’d feel finally free to treat every word, symbol, people, everyone as a thing, a plaything, just as equal to what I am.”

Hence, the presence of fur and softness becomes the most direct expression for such a state of sleep — the desire for intimacy between the artist and the material realities. Styrofoam, plaster, cardboard, and other materials can be woven together with found objects to create layered experiences for what feels real. Likewise, digital media in her work take on a tangible quality. With a bit of softness as their skin, these material realities come to stand right here as living creatures. The artist has described them as beings she would love to befriend.

In Ingrid’s artistic practice, materiality is always cherished just the same as the subject matter. Realism, as what she understands, stays truthfully in a realm of experience instead of a visual realism. She is particularly drawn to the materialistic aspects of her mediums — the utility, familiarity, and histories of use. The repetitive presence of anthropomorphism turns out to be a rather humorous, distorted, but accurate representation of the lived experience for both her subjects and her materials.

“I build them, but I’m also just simply a storyteller for each of my little things.”

@ingridhuigris