OU JIUN-YOU
Yàn (2016-2025)

3 April – 18 May 2025

The selected works in this exhibition are part of Yàn, an ongoing project by Ou Jiun-You that began in 2016. The name derives from the Mandarin transliteration of ‘inkstone’, the material used in her work. Traditionally, inkstones hold water and serve as surfaces for grinding ink sticks, their form shaped by function—defined by shallow grooves and dense weight. In the Sinosphere, inkstones are often made from Luo-Wen stone, a term describing stones with similar properties across various Chinese regions rather than a strict mineralogical classification. In the early stages of Yàn, Ou erased and preserved existing lines, then cut, faceted, carved, and reassembled the material in a seemingly playful manner. As the series progressed, the calligraphy-like strokes gradually turned into a three-dimensional shadow with their hidden but revealed expressions. This process not only emphasizes the physicality and materiality of the inkstone but also explores the most possibilities among all the units with a bricolage-based working method. Eventually, the inkstone has been transformed from a carrier of water and ink into a piece of jewelry, hushedly carrying the story of the material itself and the maker.

OU Jiun-You was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and is currently living and working between Vienna (AT) and Taipei (TW). After receiving a BA in Political Science–International Relations from National Taiwan University (TW), Ou embarked on a largely self-taught journey into raw material-based practices in 2008. Later, her growing interest in stone led her to move to Germany to study at Hochschule Trier, Campus Idar-Oberstein (DE) from 2015 to 2018, also accompanied by an Erasmus exchange at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EE) from 2016 to 2017. After her graduation, she later relocated to Karlsruhe (DE) before establishing her current base in Vienna (AT), where she continues to refine her interdisciplinary explorations and stone-based practices. Although in recent years Ou has been working interdisciplinarily with a focus on site-specific projects, her main interests have never departed from stone. The ongoing Yàn series represents a facet of her purely material-based practice, exploring the intrinsic qualities of inkstone for almost ten years. Since 2019, the Yàn series has received significant recognition, such as Grassipreis der Carl und Anneliese Goerdeler-Stiftung (2023, DE), Justus Brinckmann Förderpreis (2022, DE), and Staatspreis für das Kunsthandwerk Rheinland-Pfalz (2022, DE), Schmuck (2024, 2019), among others. Works from the series are also held in public collections, including the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst (DE), the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (DE), and more.