Seldon Yuan: Bridging Art and Language
Discover How Seldon Yuan Merges Visual Art With Poetry To Create Immersive, Thought-Provoking Experiences
Seldon Yuan discusses his artistic journey, blending visual art with poetry, and his evolving focus on humor and personal experiences to create engaging, thought-provoking works.
Seldon Yuan, a dynamic force in the contemporary art scene, has been captivating audiences with his innovative approach to visual and language arts for over two decades. Residing in Brooklyn, Yuan draws deeply from his personal history and cultural heritage, crafting works that transcend traditional boundaries. His art, which spans a diverse array of mediums including photography, sculpture, painting, and installation, is a testament to his belief that the form of each piece should be dictated by the underlying idea. Yuan’s unique ability to merge visual elements with poetic expression invites viewers into a world where art and language coalesce, offering a profound and often humorous exploration of human experience.
Yuan’s contributions to the art world are nothing short of remarkable. His installations, such as the room-sized mirror piece for his Master’s thesis and the LED light sculpture at Socrates Sculpture Park, showcase his talent for creating immersive experiences that challenge and engage audiences. His work has been exhibited in prestigious venues like MoMA and the International Center of Photography, earning him accolades and fellowships that highlight his impact and influence. Yuan’s art is not only visually striking but also intellectually stimulating, as he deftly balances text and imagery to create pieces that are both thought-provoking and accessible. His dedication to expanding the boundaries of visual poetry and his commitment to authenticity make Seldon Yuan a truly exceptional artist whose work continues to inspire and resonate with audiences worldwide.
How does your personal history shape the themes and imagery in your work, and in what ways do you see it evolving in future projects?
My work has always been inspired by my daily life: hardships, failures, emotions, humor, successes, and so on. More recently, I’ve focused on the many sometimes humorous paradoxes of trying to be a better person, coping mechanisms, and my shortcomings as they relate to stoicism, existentialism, nihilism, and Buddhism. In the past, I was focused more on melancholic topics or formal concerns, but now I want to laugh more and make work that is more generous to the everyday viewer.
It is hard to say what the future is like, and I would prefer to let it evolve on its own, but I will say I would like to continue with the humorous slant in the works.
What role does poetry play in your creative process, and how do you decide which poems or poetic elements to incorporate into a piece?
I am always writing down ideas, thoughts, and potentially clever lines, which can often be off-putting to those with me at that moment, but you have to put it down before it vaporizes. I have countless lines and ideas on my phone and computer usually waiting for a pairing either with other lines/ideas or images. How I know which goes with which is beyond my understanding. It just clicks at random times. Often I’m obsessing or repeating some line in my head while thinking of other things while daydreaming and the pairing becomes clear. But it is also an iterative process where I try it with a few different pairings, while also refining it.
Earlier on in my career, I found poetry on the page was just too limiting. I wanted to expand its meaning and alter its accessibility and experience as well as its value from a reproducible and easily distributed form of text on paper to something such as visual poetry/word art sculpture that has to be experienced in person and is a unique object.
Can you describe the experience or impact you hope to evoke by creating “a filter” between familiar objects and viewers? How does this approach affect your choice of objects or spaces?
My choice of objects or subject matter is purely personal, but I feel like it could resonate with others because we all go through the same feelings. The subjects are my subjective take on things that feel interesting or meaningful to me in some way. Often times it is the text component from a text image pairing that elucidates my take on the image and clarifies my viewpoint.
In works that merge text and visuals, how do you approach balancing both mediums to ensure that neither is reduced to mere illustration or decoration?
In the past few years, I’ve become frustrated by the openness of interpretation of so many images and separately also phrases, that I wanted to clarify my point of view and I found that text with an image clarified the meaning but in a way that was perhaps more nuanced, funny, or clever that the image could not do alone. I am always trying to find something unexpected and new.
Your work involves the “expansion and contraction of language” alongside image or object—could you share an example of this and how viewers tend to respond?
I think it is more clear in some of the visual poetry pieces like the sculptures “How I Was Made”, “Behind The Brush”, and “Every Minute Less” where each line has its own possible reading yet is part of the whole poem. But there is also the formal side of the actual letter forms and how to read them, such as what they look like, how to decipher them, and how that relates to the content of the poem. Other aspects also include when language becomes abstracted and vice versa, such as the common example when you repeat a word outlaid enough that it no longer reverts from a recognizable word to an abstract sound.
How do you avoid aesthetic overlaps with graphic design and typography, and what challenges or opportunities arise from maintaining this distinction?
I choose to purposely make things by hand rather than digitally and allow that imperfect human touch to be visible. I veer away from the obvious strategies of graphic design or typography such as order or consistency. I let it be messy. I let it be expressive. I don’t overthink it and give myself the freedom to do whatever I want. Drawing by hand takes some of the seriousness out of it so it doesn’t feel heavy-handed but instead more playful and digestible.
There are so many possible distinctions between my work and graphic design and typography to make and I’m not going to hit them all. But we all know the obvious ones: type over images, clean, measured, controlled. Graphic design is generally intended to sell something, but I’m not trying to sell anything.
EDITOR’S HIGHLIGHTS
Empowering Art & Artists Globally
“Being featured in WOWwART means gaining visibility not just in print edition, but across the entire media spectrum in the US, UK, Europe and beyond”
EDITOR’S HIGHLIGHTS
Media, Art and Artist
Media is a powerful tool to build relationships, boost visibility, influence decisions, and create lasting impressions for success and growth.
