In episode 15 we talk to artist Yuqiao Guo in a conversation that touches on cultural taboos, personal imagery, captioning our art and mixing seemingly unrelated passions. 

Yuqiao Guo is a London-based artist and designer who grew up between China and the USA. Trained as an architect and multimedia artist, Yuqiao approaches painting through the lens of self-portraiture and an interest in the narrative capacities of the body. Her paintings balance surrealism with intimacy, creating visual metaphors for the fleeting moments of self-awareness. 

Find & Follow Yuqiao:

https://www.yuqiaoguo.com/

https://www.matter-at-hand.com/ 

@yu.qiao.guo | @matterathand_ldn

Other artists mentioned: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Saville 

Key Takeaways

1. Usually in portraits the emotion and identity are conveyed through the face. However, the narrative power and agency can also reside in the body or be given back to the body through painting it. 
2. You can paint things with love and attention, even if those things you choose to paint are quote unquote ugly. 
3. Our own self-awareness of who we are is always fleeting. It is a constant dialogue between how we are perceived by society and how we perceive ourselves and how one impacts the other.
4. Bodily fluids such as milk are usually seen as private, taboo or serving a specific reproductive purpose, but they also have a sacredness to them and can take on their own metaphorical message. 
5. We can look at bodies in their own right, with neither beauty or ugliness as their purpose, but rather as self-sufficient vessels for all of our identities
6. When we caption our work we might wish to consider what is appropriate, what is effective and what is artistically impactful. 
7. We could also consider whether it’s necessary to caption our work at all. We can guide the viewer with a well-thought-out title, but captioning might veer into the territory of telling people what to think or serve our own need to explain ourselves. On the other hand, providing text can help people connect with our work, and help us connect with our audience. 
8. Every platform has its opportunities and limitations. Social media might not be the best platform for connecting with art, but it is the platform we have. We can choose to interact with these platforms in ways that serve us. 
9. Go look at art in person, in museums and galleries and places where you can absorb the textures up close. 
10. What we see in art, whether through a screen or in a gallery, is always limited in some way and always subject to to the viewer’s personal willingness
11. The varied creative processes we engage with as artists inform each other, even if they are as different from each other as painting and making ice cream

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