Jinny Yu’s practice is defined by "expanded painting," where she uses traditional techniques to explore conceptual and political questions. A central inquiry in her work is the relationship between "guest" and "host." She often reflects on her own position as a settler in Canada, examining the ethical and political responsibilities that come with occupying space. Yu is known for painting with oil and graphite on aluminum supports, a technique she has used since 2004. The material’s semi-reflective surface allows the support to act as both a mirror and a structural element, challenging the boundaries of the pictorial plane.
Early Artistic Development Jinny Yu began her professional artistic practice in the late 1990s, gaining recognition in the Canadian and international art scenes for her abstract paintings that explore spatial concepts related to nomadic existence and identity fluidity. Her early works featured large-scale canvases with geometric abstraction, often reflecting themes of displacement and migration. A notable series from this period is
Story of a Global Nomad (2007-2008), which integrates her interests in global displacement and dynamic compositions. After completing her BFA, Yu undertook an artist residency in Banff. Once she finished her MFA she went on to do two more artist residencies in Berlin and Beijing. In 2006, she was appointed as a professor at the University of Ottawa. Her installation
Sequence (2009) at Carleton University Art Gallery marked a significant milestone, extending her explorations into site-specific forms. In 2015, Yu exhibited the site-specific work ''Don't They Ever Stop Migrating?'' during the 56th
Venice Biennale at the Oratorio di San Ludovico. The installation work used a sound collage of
Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film
The Birds as a metaphor for the migration crises in the Mediterranean Sea and Bay of Bengal. The work is now in the permanent collection of the
Agnes Etherington Art Centre. In 2023, Yu collaborated with architect Ki Jun Kim and plant biochemist Frédéric Pitre on
S’Y RETROUVER, a subterranean installation of earth and white clover that gives form to the interconnectedness of tree roots and fungal networks. Visitors navigated trench-like pathways designed slow movement and prompt reflection on the land they stand on. The use of clover, a species introduced by European settlers, engages questions of ecological and colonial histories. Yu’s other public artworks include
Breathing Out (2009) and
Style of the Between (2016), presented at the Taewha River Eco Art Festival in South Korea. Her installation
Perpetual Guest (2019) addresses settler presence on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. After part of the work was accidentally shattered, Yu reworked it into
Perpetual Guest 2019/2022: Impossibility of Repair, presenting the fragments in their original configuration. The piece reflects on the limits of repair and reconciliation, drawing parallels between material fracture and the complexities of settler–Indigenous relations. In the early 2020s, after a period of working exclusively with black paint, Yu reintroduced color, resulting in geometric abstract paintings featured in her 2024 exhibition
Jinny Yu: at once at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her themes encompass self-reflexive scrutiny of painting, historical abstraction, and the complexities of belonging. Works like
What is to be Done? (2012) and the
Hôte drawings (2024) explore guest-host dynamics, migration, and colonialism's legacies. Yu teaches courses on painting practice and contemporary art along with an intensive field course at the Venice Biennale which immerses students in both the art history of Venice and contemporary art dialogues. In 2012, she was awarded the Laura Ciruls Painting Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation. She was finalist for the Pulse Prize in New York in 2011 and 2014. == Notable Exhibitions ==