Youyi Echo Yan
阎悠逸
lives and works in Brooklyn, NY



Evolution has never been just a force of nature.

Synthesizing evolutionary biology and eroticism, Echo Yan's work portrays transgressive forces that induce physical metamorphosis during the domestication process. Creating these creature-like wood sculptures allows her to re-imagine alternative evolutionary paths. She also uses museological and taxidermy visuals to critique the human obsession with displaying and altering objects and creatures.

In her recent works, she extends the notion of “domestication” to “domesticity”; as she views the creation of furniture as a domestication of surroundings. Starting from the concept of “home”, she mutates found furniture, utensils and other domestic tools into shapes of living organisms, exploring whether utility is a necessary prerequisite for existence.

In the process of evolution and domestication, forces of dominance and submission intertwine and collide. Yan materializes such forces into the pulling of the umbilical cord, the penetrating dinnerware, the straining of invisible threads, and suggestive strokes of the tail. The gentle suppleness of wire and silicone grapples with the unyielding fortitude of metal and wood, only to return into a morbid silence. Intricately carved wood pieces take on biomorphic shapes, coated in a bubble-filled membrane resembling bodily fluids made of resin, produced from artist's recipe. The resin is reminiscent of the very essence of life. Vein-like wood grain patterns emerge under the translucent resin, and seem to be constantly contracting and expanding. Recently, the sculptor has begun to scrape away portions of the woodstain and resin to reveal the underneath raw wood. This act of excavation mirrors the archaeological process, unveiling layers of meaning. At last, she binds found household tools with her wood carvings, as if enacting a form of selective breeding—sometimes the wood emerges from the object, sometimes they fuse or penetrate each other.

These sculptures invite the home-bred humans to reflect on their primal lust, corporal fragility and the paradoxical nature of the forces residing within them.






Youyi Echo Yan (b.2000, Chongqing, China) is a sculptor based in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a BFA in Studio Art at New York University (2024) with a minor in Philosophy.
Yan’s works has been exhibited in At-Will Adaptation, Eli Klein Gallery, New York (2024); OBSESSED, Zepster Gallery, Brooklyn(2024); Through the Window, On The Fringe NYC, New York (2024); Open Kitchen - Assembly, Light Up Globals Project Space, New York (2024);What if We Lose the Ground, at Accent Sisters, Jersey City (2024); 9, at theBLANC Art Space, New York (2023); Interwoven Souls: United in Loneliness, at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York (2023); A Happy Beginning, at LATITUDE Gallery, New York (2023); Genesis: A New Generation of Chinese Artists, at Chambers Fine Art (2023); MOLD-ING, with Stilllife, at 216 Lafayette St, New York (2023); Mycelia, at Commons Gallery, 34 Stuyvesant St, New York (2023); Nature v.s. Nurture, at 80WSE Gallery, 80 Washington Square E, New York(2023); Werewolf/Ferryman (Relic), at Commons Gallery in New York University, New York(2022); Island of Light, at 559 W 23rd Street, New York(2022).




Detail from Evolution on the XYZ-axis, 2023