David Yang

Conceptual Artist  ·  East Hanover, New Jersey
davidyangworks.com  ·  Instagram @davidyangworks

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a self-taught conceptual artist, working from both necessity and naivety. My concepts arrive first, fully formed, and the material follows. The idea dictates the medium, so the forms vary, but the same questions keep returning: the self and what persists through it, thresholds and what holds or gives way, and how worth is assigned rather than earned. I do not illustrate these ideas. I build objects that enact them, so the meaning is felt, not explained.

These questions start within me but belong to everyone, because most of us already carry them without knowing how to name them. The work does not answer them. It locates them. If something shifts in a viewer, even 1%, that is the intention. A seed that enters without announcement, completing itself later, somewhere I will never see.

EXHIBITIONS & JURIED SELECTIONS

The 2026 WAE Open — Heidi Gallery at JSDD, Livingston, NJ                                                                                   2026
Still · Juried group exhibition · Jurors: Sharnita C. Johnson and Joel Tidey (forthcoming)

In and Out — Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ                                                                                   2026
Held · Curated by Anne Trauben (forthcoming)

SELECTED WORKS

A selection from the current body of work.

Only You                                                                                                                                                                                2026
Two-part framed work containing a board and notecard. It has nested compliance loops mapping recognition, constraint, and who could see how far into a deception.

A Model for Anything                                                                                                                                                        2026
Three sheets of paper, escalating from pencil arithmetic to a typeset formula claiming to calculate anything. Misplaced faith in a system trusted without understanding how it fails.

Assigned                                                                                                                                                                               2026
Mixed media. An assignment ladder of value and institutional judgment. The wrongness compounds one rung at a time.

More Than Lived                                                                                                                                                                2026
Charcoal and ink on canvas. Accumulation and the marks of a vibrant enviornment.

Thank You for Your Time                                                                                                                                                  2026
Three-panel archival pigment print. The language of rejection held from two sides, the corporation and the employee or job seeker, with a durational ledger.

PRIOR PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Twenty-five years in market risk management, internal audit, and consulting prior to full-time art practice. This background informs the systems-oriented and structural thinking that runs through the conceptual work.