Yezi Lou’s work speaks in fragments—quietly, disarmingly, and with measured clarity. Working primarily in painting, her practice centers on the discarded and the ordinary: mass-produced objects, faint traces of use, overlooked forms that once held meaning but have since slipped into obsolescence. These objects, detached from function or sentiment, become vessels through which Lou explores shifts in identity, material culture, and cultural memory. What began as a reflection on nostalgia has evolved into a broader inquiry, marked by alienation that emerges from the dissonance between proximity and estrangement in contemporary life.
Born in 1997 in Wenzhou, China, Lou came of age during a period of rapid economic transformation. As a result, her interest in consumer goods and their social significance has continued to inform her practice. Over time, her work has moved away from strictly personal memory toward an exploration of how objects—rendered as incomplete narratives or unrealized promises—speak to broader social and cultural conditions. Lou holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2020) and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing at the University of California, Los Angeles. Lou describes her artistic process as an activity of integrating hybrid cultures and languages, considering her transnational background. By doing so, her work reflects the challenges of communicating across cultural and linguistic boundaries, as well as the misunderstandings that can arise in the translation process.
In this interview, Yezi Lou reflects on her evolving practice, her experience navigating multiple cultural frameworks, and the role of painting in exploring both personal and shared forms of estrangement.
Sylvia Walker: Dear Yezi Lou, I have been looking forward to this conversation ever since I saw your fascinating oil paintings, which seem to refuse to be pinned down to a set of particular motifs and subjects. However, it is clear that your work often centers on mass-produced, discarded objects. What initially drew you to these forms, and what continues to interest you about them?
Yezi Lou: Hi Sylvia, my pleasure. My obsession with objects, particularly consumer goods, is rooted in both cultural context and personal introspection. Growing up in the late 20th to early 21st century–during China’s transition from a socialist planned economy to a market-oriented one, I was immersed in the rapid rise of consumerism. The economic shift profoundly shaped the daily lives of cities across China. Wenzhou, the city where I was born and raised, known for its entrepreneurial culture, and thriving private businesses, became a hub where material goods served as symbols of status that shaped both social and romantic relationships. My childhood was filled with cheap consumer goods like toys, stationery, and decorations that played a critical role in shaping social relations. These objects, initially trivial, later repeatedly appeared in my work as a symbol of a past both intimate and distant. Over time, I have found that the allure of these mass-manufactured products has not diminished but has grown more compelling, perhaps even seductive.
SW: How has your relationship to these objects changed as your work has shifted over time?
YL: As I continued my contemplation of objects, my focus gradually shifted from the culture symbol of objects to the broader concept of alienation in human society. What began as an exploration of memory and material culture evolved into an inquiry into the dissonance between proximity and estrangement.
SW: A most likely deceivingly simple question; why painting?
YZ: For me, painting offers the most immediate and visceral access to emotions and feelings that language often fails to articulate with precision. It operates as a mediator, breaking through cultural and social boundaries to communicate something raw, primitive, and universal. I’m fascinated by how a painting can speak across difference, allowing people with entirely dissimilar backgrounds to access a shared emotional register. What also draws me to painting is its evolving role throughout history not just as a formal tradition, but as a social agent that adapts to shifting contexts.
SW: How do you see your work responding to, or resisting, the visual languages of classical oil painting?
YZ: I came as a meticulous painter, obsessed with capturing life with precision by working from direct references to achieve a perfect likeness. However, over time, I’ve grown more interested in subjectivity in the space where mistakes, ambiguity, and unpredictability are not flaws but essential qualities. Rather than claiming that classical oil painting, or figurative art, represents reality, I now see it as constructing an illusion: an image deliberately crafted to convince us of its truth. That tension between fabrication and belief keeps me engaged with oil painting as a medium—it resists obsolescence by inviting deeper questions.
SW: Your thesis exhibition, From Foreign to Domestic: An Interrogation of Belongingness, marked the culmination of your time at UCLA. Could you elaborate on this show and milestone as an artist?
YZ: The exhibition featured 20 works that I see as a distilled conclusion of my three-year journey in the graduate program. Reflecting on my time at UCLA, I found myself keep rethinking some core beliefs, and in many ways, undoing the internal logic I once leaned on to maintain a sense of self-consistency. What made this period so meaningful wasn’t just the production of work, but the space it gave me to pause, observe, and think. I was free from external pressures and distractions. It allowed me to fully dedicate myself to making art. Rather than calling it a “milestone,” I think of this time more as an accelerator—something that deepened my questions, sharpened my focus, and propelled my practice forward.
SW: You’ve written about the emotional resonance of material culture. What kinds of emotions are you most interested in exploring through these objects?
YL: Through cross-cultural comparisons, I have come to see these objects as carriers of nostalgia, but not in the conventional, sentimental sense. Such nostalgia involves a strong desire to revel in unexplored possibilities and lost experiences—not returning to a physical homeland but a return to a moment when I stood on the threshold of possibilities, a time before choices were made and paths were taken. This nostalgia does not merely reflect a longing for the past but rather for the potential futures these objects once signified. A plastic toy, a decorative trinket, or a cheaply produced figurine – these seemingly trivial items once embodied unfulfilled promises, lingering as traces of aspirations that never materialized.
SW: Your practice involves rendering objects not as symbols of memory, but as incomplete narratives or unfulfilled promises. How do you approach this open-endedness in your compositions?
YL: For me, nostalgia isn’t about longing for an idealized past—it’s a form of critical memory. I see it as a political emotion that mediates the tension between collective experience and personal loss. My work doesn’t offer closure; it dwells in the ambiguity. The objects I paint often represent moments suspended in time—echoes of futures that never came to be. This layered approach invites the viewer to consider memory as fragmented, unstable, and shaped by broader social transformations.
SW: You’ve expressed that misinterpretation by viewers was once a frustration, but later became part of the process. How did you arrive at that acceptance?
YL: When I first began studying art, I was trained to be an Illustrator. I was taught to create precise, intentional images with clear narratives. That foundation shaped my early understanding of visual communication. But gradually, I became more drawn to traditional mediums over efficient digital tools—and to ambiguity over clarity. As I started exhibiting internationally, I noticed that viewers who shared my cultural background often recognized certain visual cues, text fragments, and generational references immediately. There was an unspoken understanding of the social and historical shifts I was referencing. In contrast, audiences in the U.S. or from other backgrounds responded more to the formal and emotional tones in the work, often accompanied by curiosity or questions about the cultural context. Rather than seeing these differing interpretations as misunderstandings, I began to embrace them as part of the work’s life. They revealed how visual language operates differently across cultural landscapes. That shift in perspective helped me understand that ambiguity is a space of possibility, where complex experiences rooted in both personal and collective memory can unfold in unexpected ways.
SW: Would you say that the influence of hybrid cultural and linguistic environments partly creates misinterpretation?
YZ: It can certainly contribute to it, but I don’t see it as the root cause. Misinterpretation is part of all forms of communication including art. Even with people we’re closest to, like family, friends, or partner, misunderstandings happen all the time. I see misinterpretation as inevitable, not necessarily tied to cultural hybridity alone. And more importantly, it isn’t always negative. Sometimes, what’s “misunderstood” opens up new meanings, allowing the work to resonate in ways I didn’t anticipate. That unpredictability has become something I value in my practice.
SW: Can you speak about the connection between your upbringing in Wenzhou during a time of economic change, your decade-long experience in the United States, and your sensitivity to consumer goods in your paintings?
YL: Growing up in Wenzhou during the early 2000s, I witnessed firsthand the city’s rapid transformation driven by privatization and global trade. It was a hub of entrepreneurial energy, where small factories churned out mass-produced goods for export. These objects saturated my surroundings. But to me, they carried a strange duality: materially insignificant, yet symbolically loaded. They shaped how people navigated social spaces—signaling status, desire, even love. Later, living in the U.S. for over a decade gave me a different vantage point on consumer culture. Here, I experienced how systems of class and aspiration are often hidden behind aesthetics or ideology, but their social function felt familiar. In both places, domestic space became a key site where these forces played out, a place where the tension between tradition and modernity, memory, and ambition, is staged daily.
SW: Looking ahead, what directions—conceptual, material, or personal—do you feel drawn to explore in your work moving forward?
YL: There’s a lot I’m curious about. My working flow is quite intuitive and responsive. I don’t approach my work by assigning themes or topics to a fixed timeframe. Instead, ideas often emerge organically through making. I’m interested in exploring everything from domestic interiors to urban infrastructure, from literature to poetry. Lately, I’ve also been thinking about moving beyond the frame, breaking away from direct representation and diving deeper into visual language itself, focusing on color, depth, and movement in a more poetic, abstract way. It’s less about arriving at a fixed subject and more about following the current and instant emotional charge of my life as it unfolds.
Last Updated on July 29, 2025
- Published on
About the author:
Sylvia Walker (b. 1986, US) is an art historian, essayist, art critic, and curator. After contributing to numerous publications, and curating exhibitions in the United States of America and beyond, she currently works as the assistant director of Contemporary Art Issue (CAI).
