Meng-Yu Yan is a multimedia artist who blends digital photographic methods with analogue manipulation, sculpture, time-based mediums, and installation. Infused with Daoist philosophy and a love for darkness, the artist enjoys playing “photographic games” with their audience; amalgamating shadows, mirrors, light, glass and water to conjure visual dreamscapes.
Characterised by spontaneity and experimentation Yan’s practice conveys strong conceptual engagement with self-reflection, dreams and alienation. As a first generation Australian-Chinese queer non-binary artist, Yan’s work consistently confronts the intersections between race, culture, spirituality, sexuality and gender identity. Marked by fragmentation, multiplicity, and the unconscious their self-portraiture is reminiscent of Surrealist photographers such as Claude Cahun and Duane Michals. Using photography as a medium to channel otherworldly and paranormal phenomena, they are fascinated by spirit photography, divination, performative haunting, and astrological practices.
