TIM YIP - MAJOR SOLO EXHIBITION "ILLUSIONS OF SILENCE"
at Beijing Today Art Museum

Academy Award winner Tim Yip, will be holding his first art exhibition, "Illusions of Silence" at Beijing Today Art Museum, sponsored by CHOW TAI FOOK FINE JEWELLERY. On exhibit this time are a selection of Yip’s photography which he has been silently dedicated to for many years, as well as large-scale sculpture and video installations conceived specifically for this exhibition. 
With an illustrious career in art direction for feature film, theatre, and costume design, Yip has now turned his attention to contemporary art. This exhibition includes not only photographic works, but also a showcase of new works completed over the past year.

According to Tim Yip, although costume design has brought him much acclaim, it is but a small part of his artistic thinking, since it does not embody the complete set of his personal trademark. "The world of film is two-dimensional. In front of it, I have no personality; I embrace the thinking of everyone involved. I do enjoy communicating with others on this synthesis of light and shadows, and we would get a flow of inspirations between me and the directors I work with. But this time, I take the lead to convey the message pieces collected from childhood to the present about this world, and show it to everyone; it is actually a process of self-cleansing from the start. Directors would normally use the medium of film for this process, like tearing one's heart open and then stitching it up. This time, however, I express it in the medium of contemporary art," explains Tim Yip.

The presentation of Tim Yip's exhibition makes use of the unusually high spaces inside Beijing Today Art Museum. Starting from the entrance, the space is packaged into a giant "black box," with the only light focused on a sculpture entitled "Floating Leaf," 8 meters in length and nearly 3 meters in height. Echoing that is a video projection installation showing the texture of shadows of trees, and the glittering of the sun, and these effects of "shadows" are enlarged infinitely. Another work, entitled "Black Dancer," is a sculpture 4x6 meters in size, and appears to be a running or fleeing man whose dismembered yet powerful leg leaves the viewer's mind wandering. On the third and fourth floors of the museum, Tim Yip placed dozens of photographic works, as well as the bronze sculpture "Desire" and the installation "Waiting Room." These works build up a gargantuan yet intensely private space and a pseudo-theatrical stage, leading the audience journeying into the present and the future inside a dark environment.

"Night is the shadow of day; wind is the shadow of air; stones are the shadows of mountains; and mountains are also the shadows of stones... and yet dreams are the shadows of waking; dreams are the underlying currents. Ghosts are not the shadows of men, but variations of men. The created are the shadows of the creator." Such is Tim Yip's poetic language he uses to describe his personal aesthetic of "shadows." What we clearly feel is that "Illusions of Silence" begins from shadows of reality and fantasy, and then proceeds to explore the silent corners and dark worlds deep within each and everyone of us.

Tim Yip asks the audience not to see this exhibition with their "eyes," but to hear it with their "mind." After all, the countless stories and feelings of this world cannot be put into words, nor should they be; they are exactly what compose these many "illusions."