This Side Up: ¥ouada

Ota Fine Arts is delighted to present "This Side Up", the first solo exhibition by Chinese artist ¥ouada with the gallery. Born in 1987 in Fujian Province and currently based in Hangzhou, ¥ouada mainly works in the field of painting, and his inspirations often come from internet images and fragments of his daily life. In this exhibition, he presents works with motifs taken from popular online videos and wildlife documentaries. Pandas, cows, zebras and cheetahs with lovely round eyes are transformed into completely new images with the juxtaposition of contrasting motifs such as bulging muscles of wrestlers and glistening, thick gold chains. In recent years, ¥ouada has been using acrylic paint and spray paint extensively. The soft, blurred colors created by fluorescent sprays not only enhance the clear outlines and thick layers of gold paint, but also create a unique fanciness and questionable charm. The humorous and blatant images, together with their unique titles, also succeed in disrupting the mundane impressions that people have of the subjects depicted. We hope you will enjoy the dynamic expression of contemporary China created by ¥ouada who has first-hand experience of the consumer society and subcultures of urban China. 

In our viewing room, we will exhibit various artworks by Lazy Back Home and Xu Danqing, two young and upcoming artists from who are part of the collective "Martin Goya Business" together with ¥ouada.

Click here to access the Online Viewing Room of ¥ouada’s presentation.

[¥ouada] Born in Fujian province, China in 1987, ¥ouada graduated from the China Academy of Art in 2011. Currently lives and works in Hangzhou as an artist collective,  "Martin Goya Business" founded by a video artist Cheng Ran. His major solo exhibitions include ¥OUADA", Common Place, Beijing (2021) and "Play Me Love YOU", Swim Gallery, Los Angeles (2019). His recent group exhibitions include "Strangers of the Metaverse", Ota Fine Arts, Shanghai (2021), "New ERA F.E.S.T", K11, Shanghai (2020) and "How Do We Begin?", X Museum, Beijing (2020).