Ye Qin Zhu at Moskowitz Bayse

At Moskowitz Bayse in Hollywood, irregularly shaped wood panels form the bases for a wild set of colorful paintings by Ye Qin Zhu. Zhu builds his surfaces slowly to create texturally evocative fields — some recall some kind of sticky alien plasma while others feel more dull and benign like paper pulp — before applying a final layer of small brush marks that create frenetic fields across each piece. Some, like “cosmic reach for protection” appear as landscapes — brush marks celestially swirling in the sky like Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” A gold chain is applied to the surface of the work like a slithering snake making her way through the landscape.

Other compositions are more abstract, and cell phone covers, beaded jewelry, and other bits and bobs congregate with natural materials like seed pods, becoming entrenched and buried within a field of technicolor dash marks. The titles for these textured panels, such as “merciful river body” or “cosmic reach for protection” add a mystical and spiritual context to the paintings, further transforming the work’s cloaked everyday objects into ritual objects. Here paint becomes a metaphorical medium that can create transformative effects, both physical and spiritual.

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Photo: Ye Qin Zhu, “cosmic reach for protection,” 2020. Image courtesy of the artist and Moskowitz Bayse.