A visual Memoir
@stephanieyuyeeyahng
Stephanie Yiyáng Yú
Ἄρτεμις, Artemis (2026)
Paris and Ï (2026)
Paris and I
2026
watercolor on paper
Have you ever woken up one morning with the sudden urge to be somewhere else?
One morning, I found myself missing Paris.
Paris was once the undisputed gathering place for artists, writers, and dreamers from all over the world. And I know Paris is not for everyone. Some find it overrated, but I love the friends I have there, the conversations we share, and the inspiration I seem to find in these conversations.
There is one good friend in particular whom I've known for more than a decade. Every time I visit, they remind me of who I am, and somehow, even before I fully knew it myself, they reminded me that I was meant to be an artist.
I tend to associate every city with a feeling. Paris feels safe to me. It feels like a safe place to be creative, to wander, to think, and simply to be.
Paris, for me, is a place of conversations, friendships, inspiration, and wandering around with nowhere in particular to be. Writing about it now only makes me miss it more.
Maybe that's why I painted Paris and I that morning.
Paris, to me, is more than a place. Paris is a feeling.
And somehow, Paris and I have always had a special bond.
Collection Overview
A Finished Collection: Oh, Chandelier, Chandelier (2026)
1. Oh, I love the Chandelier 2026oil pastel on paper2. Look at the Chandelier 2026 Oil pastel on canvas. 3.Chandelier in Casa Batlló 2026 Mixed media on paper4. Chandeliers of Maria Callas 2026 watercolor on paper 5. Chandelier: The True Blue2026Oil on canvasAn Ongoing Collection: The Girl in me (2026)
1. A girl with Big Dreams 2026watercolor on paper 2. Fashion Icon: A collaboration with la.inbaku2026watercolor on paper3.Out for a Walk
2026
watercolor on paper
3. A Fragment of Being a Child
2026
Watercolor on paper
An Onoing Collection: Your New York, My New York
1.Orange tree Planter, Nevers, France, ca. 1680, the Frick Collection, New York
2026
Oil Pastel on paper
2.Treasure Hunt at the Cooper Hewitt
2026
Watercolor on paper
3.Central Park
2026
watercolor on paper
Αθηνά,Αthena (2026)
Your New York, My New York (2026), an Ongoing Collection
Orange tree Planter, Nevers, France, ca. 1680, the Frick Collection, New York
2026
Oil Pastel on paper
Central Park
2026
watercolor on paper
Treasure Hunt at the Cooper Hewitt
2026
Watercolor on paper
La Dolce Riva, La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Shore)
The blinding sun blurs your vision. Everything is almost too bright, but you don’t seem to mind.
You look out into the distance with Pino D’Angiò playing in your ears and take a sip of your iced drink. The sunlight hits the surface of the ocean, and suddenly it looks like fish scales, shimmering in all different colors.
Then you notice this beautiful Italian building under construction, standing tall by the water. You wonder what all the construction is about and what this already astonishing building might look like when it is finally finished.
There is something hopeful about not knowing yet.
You see a pink diamond. It’s the building.
Later, when you return home from that trip, you realize that the memory itself has become a diamond. The sweet feeling of being peaceful and hopeful about the unknown future.
Certain places have such a significant place in our hearts because they are linked to a specific feeling, and that specific feeling is a beautiful diamond. When you look back, all you can see is that beautiful “diamond,” a piece of memory you cherish.
La Dolce Riva, La Dolce Vita (2026)
Watercolor on paper
12 x 10 in.
30 x 25 cm
An Ongoing Serie: The Girl in Me (2026)
A girl with big dreams
2026
Watercolor on paper
A Fashion Icon, a Collaboration with @La.inbaku
2026
Watercolor on paper
A Fragment of Being a Child
2026
Watercolor on paper
Out for a Walk
20206
Watercolor on paper
2026
Saatchi Art — Chief Curator's Top Pick
Not Even a Million Doors (2026)
Acrylic on canvas
She looks up and sees a beautiful chandelier shimmering in every color she could imagine, shades of blue, green, coral, purple, and countless others, each piece of sea glass catching the light in its own way. Before she realizes it, she finds herself standing among its delicate strands of glass beads and pearls. Surrounded by this sea of color, time slows. She refuses to leave. She lingers there, gazing upward, as though the chandelier has become a world of its own.
Oh, Chandelier ,Chandelier! (2026)
Chandelier in Casa Batlló 2026Mixed media on paper
Look at the Chandelier! 2026 Oil pastel on paper
Oh, I Love the Chandelier! 2026 Oil pastel on canvas
Chandeliers of Maria Callas 2026Watercolor on paper
Chandeliers: The True Blue
2026
Oil on canvas
30 × 40 in.
76 × 102 cm.
Research & Inspiration
Oh, Chandelier, Chandelier emerged from an accumulation of architecture, travel, literature, cinema, music, and everyday observation. Rather than beginning with a single image, the paintings developed through fragments of lived experience that gradually converged into a shared emotional language.
The series was sparked by a simple remark: "Look how beautiful the chandelier is." From that moment, I began noticing chandeliers everywhere—in museums, historic homes, restaurants, and churches. What first appeared as decorative objects slowly became symbols of devotion, memory, and the quiet people who illuminate our lives without asking to be seen.
Architecture has long been central to my practice. Works such as Chandelier in Casa Batlló grew from photographs taken during my travels, but they are reconstructed through memory rather than documentation. Influenced by Gustav Klimt's luminous ornamentation, the emotional atmosphere of Michael Cacoyannis' Stella (1955), Pablo Larraín's Maria (2024), and Patti Smith's Devotion, these paintings explore how beauty, love, and quiet acts of care become inseparable from the places we remember.
Music also forms an essential part of my process. While creating this collection, I repeatedly listened to Guitarra Azul's Mariposa, allowing its warmth and rhythm to shape the emotional pace of the work.
I think of painting as a language of encoding and decoding. Every work begins long before the first brushstroke, formed through conversations, films, books, architecture, relationships, travel, and memory. These experiences become embedded within the paintings, inviting viewers to discover their own stories within them.
Project in Progress: Home- A Joint Collaboration with Reisha Savadatti
Selected Collection: People Like Flowers
Orchids: A Quick Oil Pastel Study (2026) Oil Pastel
Tulips: A Quick Oil Pastel Study (2026) Oil Pastel
My Favorite Flowers Are Lilies: A Quick Oil Pastel Study (2026) Oil Pastel
The Studio (2023)
Oil on canvas
That summer, after COVID, I decided to return to painting with oils. I painted The Studio during one of my summer classes, unaware that it would become the beginning of something much greater than I could have imagined.
Looking back, this painting feels almost prophetic. Three years later, I realized that painting had never really left me; it was still where my passion lived. This class gave me the confidence to trust myself again after years away from painting, quietly laying the foundation for the artist I am today.
Henri Matisse was one of my earliest inspirations, Instead of painting the studio as it appeared, I painted it as it felt. The colors came entirely from intuition—perhaps they reflected something I was feeling at the time more than something I was seeing.
During the critique, my painting stood apart. None of my colors resembled the white studio with its gray floor that we had been asked to paint. Some classmates remarked that my oils looked almost like watercolor. They were right. I intentionally worked with generous amounts of oil, allowing translucent layers to soften the paint until it behaved almost like watercolor. Rather than resisting that quality, I embraced it.
Today, I see The Studio as an invitation. Wander through the space. Look beyond the pillars. Imagine what lies around the corner. If an ordinary white classroom could become a place like this through imagination, perhaps the same is true of the world around us. The most ordinary places often hold the possibility of becoming extraordinary—we simply have to learn to see them differently.
Artist Biography
Stephanie Yiyang Yu is a Chinese artist based in New York City whose work explores memory, travel, architecture, and the emotional landscapes of everyday life. Working primarily in oil, watercolor, and mixed media, she transforms lived experiences into dreamlike visual memoirs, where places become vessels for memory and color becomes a language of emotion.
From an early age, Yu developed a deep fascination with poetry, foreign languages, writing, music, cinema, and art—interests that continue to shape her multidisciplinary practice. Before dedicating herself fully to painting, she worked across creative marketing and public relations while earning a bachelor's degree in Communication and International & Global Studies, with a concentration in European and Central Asian regions, from Rutgers University–New Brunswick. She later pursued Fashion Trend Investigation at Istituto Europeo di Design in Barcelona, where her interest in visual culture and storytelling continued to expand.
Throughout these years, extensive travel became an essential part of Yu's creative process. The streets she wandered, the architecture she observed, and the fleeting encounters she experienced became an ever-growing archive of memories that would later find their way into her paintings.
Yu returned to oil painting in 2023 and committed herself fully to her practice in January 2026. Within months of her return, her painting Not Even a Million Doors was selected as a Chief Curator's Pick by Saatchi Art, marking an important early recognition of her work.
Today, Yu's paintings are guided by intuition as much as observation. Influenced by travel, music, cinema, literature, and her multicultural upbringing, she creates poetic spaces that invite viewers to wander through memory, imagination, and the quiet beauty of ordinary places.
I paint facades as portraits, believing that every place remembers someone.
Visual Memoir
Visual Memoir is an ongoing body of work exploring memory, identity, and the emotional landscapes we carry within us. Through painting, photography, film, and writing, I transform architecture and everyday objects into portraits of people, places, and moments that continue to live in memory.
Title
Amsterdam Billiards, April (2026)
Year
2026
Casa Pere Brias, Barcelona(2026)
Crema Plaza Study (2026)
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POESÏA: Love, Lisboa (2026)
Amsterdam Billiards, April (2026)
Acrylic on Canvas
La Perla (2025)
Not Even a Million Doors (2026)
Venice Beach (2026)
Façade, Milano (2026)
Reliquia: It Came to Me in a Dream (2026)
Canvas Works
“I love working with oil because it mirrors the way I see life. It asks for patience, rewards time, and leaves room for change. With oil, every brushstroke can be reconsidered, every mistake reimagined, and every painting allowed to evolve at its own pace.”
Dream State (2026)
Oil on cotton canvas · 30 × 40 cm (12 × 16 in)
The Studio (2024)
Oil on canvas
Santa Maria Maior, Lisboa (2026)
Oil on canvas
Reliquia (2026)
Oil on canvas
Hard Century, Paris, Wine (2026)
Oil on canvas · 30 × 30 in
Canvas Works
Oil
Dream State (2026)
Oil on cotton canvas · 30 × 40 cm (12 × 16 in)Reliquia (2026)
Oil on canvasHard Century, Paris, Wine (2026)
Oil on canvas · 30 × 30 inThe Studio (2024)
Oil on canvasSanta Maria Maior, Lisboa (2026)
Oil on canvas
Acrylic
Reliquia: It Came to Me in a Dream (2026)
Acrylic on canvas · 24 × 30 inNot Even a Million Doors (2026)
Venice Beach (2026)
Two Sardines in a Can
La Perla (2025)
Walk, Don't Run
Red String Theory
Works on Paper
Prints Available
Amsterdam Billiards, April (2026)
Handpan, Middle Wulumuqi Road
手碟，乌鲁木齐中路 (2026)POESÏA: Love, Lisboa (2026)
Crema Piazza Study (2026)
Casa Pere Brias, Barcelona (2026)
Playroom (2026)
El Manjar, Ciudad de México (2026)
Next to Plaza Popocatépetl (2026)
After Gaudí (2026)
Ceramics
After Gaudí Vol. III (2026)
Reliquia—Relic II (2025)
Mixed Media
Pastel Supper (2026)
Mighty Stroll at Battery Park (2026)
NYC Visual Notes
Lisboa Visual Notes
Façade, Milano (2026)
Photography
Strolling, El Raval, Barcelona
After Antoni Gaudí: Between Presence and Absence
Shop My Art in Person
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Shop My Art in Person *
A selection of my fine art prints is available at Soho News International.
186 Prince St
New York, NY 10012
