Andre Yi: Floating City

FLOATING CITY

In his first solo show Andre Yi focuses his attention on a Los Angeles that is well known to it’s residents, but features none of the iconic images that have become the myth of the Hollywood dream. The Los Angeles that Yi sees shows its charms through the small gesture of a vintage pastrami stand or the architecture of a middle class home in one of LA’s culturally and geographically diverse neighborhoods. Drawn and painted on fields of expansive color, Yi’s work incorporates elements of minimalism, architectural rendering, and pop iconography, along with constant use of a gesture that in Japanese wood block prints signified water and here alludes to smog. Yi’s myriad borrowings are not appropriation but rather a reflection of the way the culture of Los Angeles is being put together from an astounding array of cultural influences.