Born in Beijing in 1954, You Si studied both at the Shanghai Theater Academy as well as at the Anhui Province School of Arts. Having recently returned to Shanghai after living in New York since the 1980s, You explores new possibilities of ink painting by using an eyedropper to deploy colors and ink on xuan paper. Vibrant, dramatic, and strikingly fresh, his works are filled with surreal and invented landscapes which can also be read as bustling mitochondria, dense jungles, or organisms interacting with each other in an ever-changing environment. You builds up imaginative spaces in multiple synchronicities, and his mastery of composition and deft control of color, linked with his discarding of the traditional brush, have led to a body of work of singular originality.
