Yu-Jei Yen | 閻昱潔
Yu-Jei Yen 閻昱潔 is a New York-based textile artist, most notably for creating a custom commissioned wearable artwork for musician Doja Cat, for the 2023 VMA red carpet. Yu-Jei is currently completing her graduate programat Parsons at The New School for MFA Textiles. She specializes in handmade fiber crafts, specifically crochet, and hones her obsession with laborious all-consuming, large-scale handmade knitting artform.
With a focus on Asian heritage, she navigates a constant toil with her Taiwanese identity and Asian in America. In her work, she plays with scale, and meticulously crafts intimate structures loop by loop, one stitch at a time, using crochet and textiles as her medium. Many of her large-scale sculptures incorporate textured details that evoke empathy and encourage self-reflection. Yu-Jei's work juxtaposes the refined and intricate with raw energy and emotions that push the traditional archetype of crochet as an artform.
Out of the Blue
Celebrating the unexpected, Out of the Blue draws inspiration from Yu-Jei’s fond memory of her grandfather, recollecting a moment when he began dancing in the streets at a parade, a capture of impromptu gaiety that was completely out of his often serious character. Completely hand-crocheted, the textures of the panel correspond to her grandfather’s Chinese calligraphy painting. This artwork is a collaboration with the artist’s departed grandfather that transcends the bounds of time and space.
It's Not Fair
Addressing community rage and injustice, It's Not Fair is a knitting panel that conceptually explores the tragic case of Vincent Chen, a Chinese-American victim of a hate crime. Through intricate hand knitting, crochet, and embroidery, the piece vividly portrays the collective outcry against systemic biases, urging society to dismantle oppressive structures. Rage is an external sadness, a form of cry for help. If there is no explosion, who else would know that we are hurt? The scene is a collective consciousness of saying No!
Done Differently
In Done Differently, Yu-Jei crocheted a cityscape torn by conflict, reflecting on the consequences of uncompromising division. Yu-Jei draws attention back to her hometown where political divides push a people’s safety to a dangerous extreme. She wants to showcase that acutely dissonant ideology can further fractionate people and warrant attack and hurt. The intricate surface pattern highlights the individual experiences within the wreckage. Now, the question arises: How do we navigate beyond this turmoil and find a path forward?
The quote offers a clue, particularly in its opening lines:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, There is a field. I'll meet you there.
-Sufism scholar Rumi