xi xi su su /Mother’s Tankstation /London /Mar 14 – Apr 17, 2025 / Nai-Jen Yang’s paintings unfold like whispered secrets, resisting immediate comprehension. In her first solo exhibition in London, at Mother’s Tankstation, surfaces made of gentle, meticulous brushstrokes evoke both lightness and weight, demanding time not as an aesthetic luxury but as a fundamental requirement for their visual effects to register. Looking at works like Bon Iver, Bon Iver and white noise (2024), the eye initially finds little to grasp. Yang’s process involves months of sustained engagement with individual canvases, listening to the same musical pieces while building up surfaces through thousands of repetitive marks. Working with oil paint and rabbit skin glue on fabrics such as calico, muslin and canvas, she creates surfaces that shift between opacity and translucence depending on angle and light. Applied without traditional gesso, the rabbit skin glue creates microscopic crystalline formations that catch and refract light throughout the day. From certain angles, these appear as tiny prisms embedded in the surface. The fabric remains partially transparent, revealing …