EVERYTHING IS ZERO CALORIE

Chinatown Soup is pleased to present Everything is Zero Calorie, an exhibition of painting, sculpture, and voracious imagination by artist-in-residence Yen Yen Chou on view November 11 - November 17. Please join us for a reception on Friday, November 15 from 6-9pm to celebrate!

This exhibition explores Yen Yen’s imaginary world of sweets and psychedelic treats. Compelled by her inner gourmand, Yen Yen fantasizes everyday foods as playful, anthropomorphic characters from pancakes, mushrooms, clouds, and more. This wonderland tableau is a buffet of bright color and disproportion utilizing urethane foam, epoxy clay, modeling, and pouring mediums that invite the viewer to experience an uncanny revelation of the otherwise mundane.

And now, a message from the artist…

Growing up in Taiwan, I remember going to supermarkets and bakeries with my parents and longing for all the colorful, eye-catching sweets and buttery pastries. I find it curious that even they don’t always taste as good as they look, I still desire them. As a response to this emotional conflict, I make work that explores the ideas of obsession, sensation, and the relationship between natural and artificial.

Besides the obsession with sweets, objects such as clouds, mushrooms, and raindrops have also been recurring subjects in my work. Like sweets, their round and curvy contours have always given me a sense of freedom that they can become anything. On the other hand, they are reminiscent of human lives – temporal and ever-changing.

Through transforming form with my imagination, I hope to remember these fleeting moments in life, whether they are sweet or bitter; clear or ambiguous. The title of the exhibition is inspired by the viral Japanese song “Unmarvelous” by MONKEY MAJIK and Sandwich Man.

Yen Yen Chou (b. 1992, Taipei, Taiwan) is a Brooklyn-based artist. Last year, she graduated from Pratt Institute with an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing after receiving her Bachelor’s in Education from the University of Taipei. Yen Yen has participated in a number of group exhibitions at spaces including The Hole Gallery, New York, NY; Visual AIDS, New York, NY; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY; Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY; and The Cluster Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. She has been a resident artist at Soup Studio since early 2019.