Man Yau
Delfu
Galleria Huuto Jätkäsaari, Jätkä 1
5-20 August 2017
On becoming Delfu
Sisyphus was, as a punishment, forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill. After reaching the top, the boulder rolled down into the plain. His work continued day after day, endlessly, always starting all over again.
The process that has led to Delfu sounds like Sisyphus’ task. At first there was wood, a chain saw and an angle grinder. Both the material and the tools were new to the artist. Focused work produced shapes. The shapes produced a familiar figure that had to be recreated. Working produced an idea: an attempt to achieve a perfect sculpture in which the human touch is no longer visible.
At that moment when the boulder rolls down the hill, Sisyphus has to be aware of the impossibility and absurdity of his task – and still continue. He has to conquer the boulder. The creator of a perfect sculpture has the same fate. In order to create Delfu, one has to become Delfu.
A perfect sculpture does not show the hours worked, the versions created, the learning of the nature of the material, the experiments that have been rejected – the fallen boulders. Being sharp-eyed can be torturous, but only continuing one’s work will make one’s victory complete. Every time Sisyphus follows his boulder down into the plain, he becomes more powerful than the boulder.
This moment can be found in Man Yau’s diary entries: “The last phase that happens as a result of a few months of work is the most special – the smoothest but perhaps also the most dangerous. It is the moment when I solely focus on the actual piece of wood and the tools become an extension of my arms. I no longer pay attention to the physical movement, I just intently follow the work as it takes shape. In my head I am always a step ahead in terms of shape, I know where to remove more. I don’t usually have clear memories of the process during this phase, only feelings.”
When the work process is at its smoothest, one has to make choices as to what feels good. One has to keep cherishing the memory that is the dearest to oneself.
When everyday activities have intrinsic value, one can be happy in front of their task.
At the gallery, Delfu’s world seems to have gotten an end for the first time. The wooden figure has grown around itself into a complexity of materials, shapes and colors. The wood, ceramics, acrylic and their joints are combined, through their surfaces, into natural elements, into a whole world. Around Delfu, “each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world” – looking like its creator.
Man Yau (b. 1991) lives and works in Helsinki. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 2013 from the degree program in ceramic and glass design at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
The exhibition has been supported by Konstsamfundet and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the opening is sponsored by Brewdog and Vallilan Panimo.
Text: Lauri Alaviitala
Further information:
Man Yau
+358 45 203 1530
man(at)manyau.fi
www.manyau.fi
* Albert Camus: Le Mythe de Sisyphe, 1942
