Dive into Weishan Yang’s disquieting digital universe, inspired by horror fiction and old tattoo magazines

The year 2020 proved to be a turning point for Weishan Yang’s creative practice. Unable to realise the sculptural forms they wanted to physically make due to Covid-19 restrictions, they instead started drawing them – using Procreate, Nomad and Photoshop. The period was what Weishan describes as “a process of self learning”, trying out different tools, brushes and techniques, before stumbling upon airbrush and blur tools, now a central feature of her work.

Through their dark sculptural forms, Weishan delves into philosophical matters, like the connection between external and internal landscapes, liminality and the “displaced” body. The eerie and dreamlike environments she houses them in, full of deep bleeding colours and obscured shapes have a distinctly disquieting quality to them, which makes sense, as Weishan takes direct influence from the environments and aesthetics of horror fiction. Weishan also draws influence from other subcultural areas, like old tattoo magazines, surrealist artworks and vintage cartoons.