Yang Bodu｜Black Eagle, White Eagle—Long Museum
Dates｜2025.11.13 – 2026.01.11
Opening｜2025.11.12 16:00
Curator｜Cui Cancan
Venue｜Staircase Gallery, Long Museum West Bund
Yang Bodu will present a solo exhibition, Black Eagle, White Eagle, at the Long Museum from 13th November to 11th January, featuring the artist's work on a variety series of subjects, including "In the Museum" and "Mirkwood". In the painting, the "Open Door" is positioned within architectural spaces, such as museums, grottoes carved into cliffs, and dense forests, connecting each independent space. The artist uses "Open Door" as a viewing medium. Behind the door is a vast and shadowy structure that resembles a black eagle. When light shines through the cracks, it creates a unique spacetime between the inside and outside, virtual and real, and forming visual hierarchies and tensions between observation and being observed. These spaces which wander the realms of the virtuality and reality, reveal the artist's longstanding speculation of landscape, architecture, and the power of seeing.
Yang Bodu was born in Tianjin in 1986. She received her BFA from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 2008 and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2012. During her studies at PAFA, she won the Justine Cretella Memorial Scholarship in 2011 and the Fellowship Trust Prize for her presentation at the Annual Student Exhibition in 2012. In 2021, Yang was featured in The Artsy Vanguard, and she also won the “Young Artist of the Year” of ARTnews China in 2025.
Yang's work revolves around what she describes as a “spiritual artscape.” Through a practice centered on painting, she explores architectural spaces—museums, galleries, and other art institutions—merging these constructed forms with imagery of grottoes, caves, and jungles to create abstract, spacious, and idealized spatial narratives.
In recent years, Yang has shifted toward creating immersive painted environments—what she calls “architectural moments”—born from the interplay of light, shadow, and structure. Within these enigmatic spaces, her work navigates the ambiguous boundaries between private emotion and public space, between creation and contemplation, between seeing and being seen.
Yang Bodu was born in Tianjin in 1986. She received her BFA from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 2008 and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2012. During her studies at PAFA, she won the Justine Cretella Memorial Scholarship in 2011 and the Fellowship Trust Prize for her presentation at the Annual Student Exhibition in 2012. In 2021, Yang was featured in The Artsy Vanguard, and she also won the “Young Artist of the Year” of ARTnews China in 2025.
Yang's work revolves around what she describes as a “spiritual artscape.” Through a practice centered on painting, she explores architectural spaces—museums, galleries, and other art institutions—merging these constructed forms with imagery of grottoes, caves, and jungles to create abstract, spacious, and idealized spatial narratives.
In recent years, Yang has shifted toward creating immersive painted environments—what she calls “architectural moments”—born from the interplay of light, shadow, and structure. Within these enigmatic spaces, her work navigates the ambiguous boundaries between private emotion and public space, between creation and contemplation, between seeing and being seen.
Yang Bodu, Mirkwood 3:95, Oil on canvas, 308x200 cm, 2025
Yang Bodu, In the Museum 8:23, Oil on canvas, 80x60 cm, 2025
Yang Bodu, POND 4:20, Oil on canvas, 43x24 cm, 2025