Mythologies

Mythology — An Evolving Practice
I was born in Taiwan, moved to America at eight, and grew up navigating between cultures, languages, and ways of seeing. From early on, art became the place where those crossings could exist without needing resolution. My earliest works emerged from the body and emotion — raw expressions of longing, memory, and stories I didn’t yet have language for.
In those early mythologies, I painted instinctively. Forms were fluid, symbols intertwined with figures, and movement carried more meaning than explanation. Horses, spirals, and transformations appeared as extensions of an inner search — a younger self trying to locate identity through sensation, emotion, and imagination.
Over time, that inquiry shifted. My current mythologies no longer center on the self alone, but on relationship — between body and environment, individual and community, inner life and the larger rhythms that hold us. The work has grown quieter, slower, and more attentive. Rather than chasing feeling, it listens. Rather than narrating identity, it witnesses consciousness as it moves through land, water, memory, and return.
This shift is not a departure from my earlier work, but a continuation through a different lens. Where the first mythology was rooted in the body and interior experience, the current one unfolds outward — shaped by place, ecology, shared space, and the unseen patterns that guide how we live and belong.
I’m reopening my Patreon as an open art journal — a living practice rather than a finished archive. It’s a space to share process, sketches, questions, and works-in-progress as they unfold in real time. I’m interested less in presenting conclusions than in staying with inquiry, and inviting others into that attention.
Here, older works and newer visions exist side by side — not as separate eras, but as chapters in a continuous mythology still being written.
If you’re drawn to the space where art, myth, and consciousness quietly intersect, you’re welcome to walk this path with me. 
— Steven Yu

Oil on Wooden Door: 76cm X 196cm

This door piece has lived as a long-held vision. I completed the original work while I was in Shanghai, already imagining it not as a static object, but as something experiential — a threshold meant to be entered through light, sound, and presence.
From the beginning, I envisioned it as part of a ritual space, closer in spirit to a Japanese tea ceremony than a conventional installation: quiet, deliberate, and immersive. That ritual has not yet taken place, but the impulse toward it has remained central to the work.
Recently, I was finally able to gather a small crew to create custom music and animation to pair with the door. What emerges here is the interactive projection and sound component — an extension of the original piece rather than a reinterpretation. Light moves across the surface; sound activates the space around it. The door becomes less an object and more a condition.
This work represents a threshold moment in the larger mythology — a pause before enactment. The ritual is still to come, but its atmosphere is already present.
Natural Harmonics
Threshold → stillness, intention, arrival
Light and sound do not dramatize the door; they listen to it.
In life, this reflects a readiness without urgency — the understanding that some crossings are prepared slowly, and entered only when the body, space, and time align.

Water Dragon - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 53 X 38cm

This work emerged from a return — revisiting motifs I first explored several years ago, during the Year of the Dragon, but seeing them through the lens of a changed life and a longer practice. Over time, my relationship to place, family, community, and self has become less fragmented, and that integration has reshaped how mythology enters the work.
I have drawn dragons before, but here the dragon is no longer a singular symbol or gesture. It functions instead as a continuous presence — entwined with landscape, water, and movement — reflecting an evolution in how I understand power, belonging, and continuity. This piece marks the first full articulation of that shift.
Formally, the dragon and the environment are inseparable. The body coils with the river; motion is sustained rather than dramatic. The work resists spectacle in favor of duration — a mythology that unfolds slowly, shaped by lived experience rather than narrative climax.
Natural Harmonics
Water → continuity, memory, adaptive strength
The river and the dragon move together, without dominance.
In life, this mirrors a growing trust in flow over force — an understanding that endurance often carries more weight than intensity.

Fire Dragon - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 53 X 38cm

This fire dragon followed directly after the water dragon, and the closeness between the two is intentional. At this stage of the series, I was still in the process of revising my mythology — testing its edges, listening for what had shifted, and allowing the work to reveal its next movement rather than forcing resolution.
While the water dragon held continuity and flow, this piece introduces friction. Fire enters not as spectacle, but as tension — a slow ignition tied to questions of heritage, cultural memory, and storytelling. The dragon coils around the moon, suspended between restraint and release, mirroring a moment of internal negotiation rather than declaration.
Formally, warmth and coolness coexist. The blues remain present, but they are pulled through reds, golds, and heat-driven motion. The composition resists clarity in favor of circulation, suggesting that identity and myth are not fixed narratives, but living systems shaped through return and revision.
Natural Harmonics
Fire → activation, friction, emergence
Here, fire does not consume — it illuminates pressure points.
In life, this reflects the moment when inherited stories begin to surface, asking to be held, questioned, and carried forward with intention rather than certainty.

Korea Qilin no.1 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 53 X 38cm

This piece emerged while I was traveling, particularly during my time in Korea. The architecture struck me immediately — familiar, yet subtly dissonant. It carried echoes of places I knew, but with a rhythm and proportion that felt distinctly its own. That tension became the starting point for the work.
I chose a deliberately demanding composition: multiple human figures, a mythological dragon, and architectural structures all occupying the same visual field. Rather than separating these elements into foreground and background, I let them interweave. The figures move through the space as if carried by an unseen current, while the dragon threads through them — not as an external force, but as part of the same flow.
The architecture functions as both setting and constraint. It anchors the piece in the contemporary world while allowing myth to pass through it, suggesting that mythology is not something inherited intact, but something that continues to move through lived environments, bodies, and memory.
Natural Harmonics
Flow → convergence, continuity, shared momentum
The dragon, figures, and structures move together rather than collide.
In life, this reflects the experience of carrying personal and cultural mythology while navigating modern spaces — learning how identity adapts without dissolving.

Korea Qilin no.2 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 53 X 38cm

With this piece, I intentionally shifted the form of the mythological creature itself. While traveling through a national park in Seoul, I found myself drawn away from the more forceful presence of the dragon and toward the Qilin — still part of the same lineage, but quieter, more restrained, and deeply attuned to the natural world.
The Qilin offered a different register for what I was experiencing at the time. It allowed the mythology to soften without losing strength. The creature moves through architecture and landscape not as a rupture, but as a guardian presence — attentive rather than dominant. This shift marked an important recalibration in the series, opening space for gentleness, observation, and continuity with nature.
Formally, the composition balances structure and flow. Architectural elements remain grounded and precise, while color and movement carry the creature forward, suggesting an ongoing dialogue between the built environment and the living world. The Qilin becomes a bridge — between dragon and land, myth and memory, motion and stillness.
Natural Harmonics
Wood → growth, sensitivity, quiet endurance
The Qilin does not announce itself; it listens and responds.
In life, this reflects a growing attunement to nature as teacher — an understanding that strength can arrive through care, patience, and sustained presence rather than force.

Walking in Memory - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 53 X 38cm

In this piece, the Qilin continues to inhabit architecture, but the setting shifts inward. Returning to Taiwan, I found myself walking the streets of my old neighborhood, and the experience became unexpectedly biographical. History didn’t sit behind me — it overlapped with my present, moving through the same streets, the same scale of buildings, the same rhythms of daily life.
The mythology here is less imagined and more inhabited. The creature rises directly from the environment, not as an interruption, but as a reflection of lived memory. Architecture becomes a container for personal history, while the street itself acts as a passage — a place where past and present converge. This is where the work moves closest to self-portrait, without depicting the self directly.
Formally, the composition pulls the myth down into human scale. The figure walking forward anchors the space, while the creature stretches above, carrying accumulated memory, lineage, and return. The work marks a moment where mythology becomes inseparable from place — an infusion of self, soul, and environment that defines this new phase of the series.
Natural Harmonics
Earth → grounding, memory, belonging
The street holds the body steady while the myth moves overhead.
In life, this reflects the act of returning — discovering that home is not static, but something reshaped each time we walk through it with awareness.

Gaia Qilin no.1 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 53 X 38cm

With this piece, I felt a clear pull toward architectural invention. Rather than placing mythological figures into existing environments, I began constructing a world for them — a place where these creatures could genuinely live. At the time, I was living in Taiwan and traveling frequently through its landscapes, moving between dense cities and open nature, and that rhythm shaped the work deeply.
The landscape here is intentionally composite. Elements drawn from different regions of Taiwan are layered alongside distant references — including the Swiss Alps — not as literal geography, but as remembered terrain. These are places filtered through experience, movement, and attachment. The result is a cityscape woven into nature, where architecture grows out of land rather than standing apart from it.
The mythological presence acts as a guide rather than a spectacle. The figure moves calmly through the environment, suggesting a state of belonging rather than conquest. This work marks a moment where mythology becomes internalized — no longer something observed from a distance, but something that lives in parallel with daily movement, travel, and memory. These landscapes are not imagined futures or ancient pasts; they are places that exist quietly in my inner geography.
Natural Harmonics
Earth → belonging, synthesis, inner terrain
Land, city, and myth settle into one continuous system.
In life, this reflects the act of carrying multiple homes at once — allowing memory, travel, and imagination to merge into a grounded sense of place.

Gaia Qilin no.2 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 53 X 38cm

I didn’t fully understand this piece until it emerged as a second work. Only then did I realize that the first painting was oriented inward — looking into the valley — while this one turns outward, toward the ocean. The two form a continuous landscape. In this piece, we stand on the mountain’s edge, with our backs to the valley of the first work.
That shift in orientation changed everything. The mythology here is less enclosed and more expansive. The creature stands at a threshold — between land and sea, interior and exterior — holding a quiet vantage point rather than moving through the terrain. What was once immersive becomes contemplative.
The landscape opens up. Architecture recedes into the terrain, while the horizon stretches outward. This piece completes the spatial logic of the world I was building — an environment that can be entered, traversed, and finally looked out from. Together, the two works function as an interior and exterior of the same imagined place, shaped as much by perception as by geography.
Natural Harmonics
Water → horizon, release, perspective
From the mountain, the sea becomes visible.
In life, this reflects the moment when an inner landscape is no longer contained — when what has been lived and integrated can finally be released outward, without urgency or explanation.

Koi no.1 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 29 X 38cm

As often happens in my practice, the work shifted organically. After moving through dragons and Qilin, I felt the pull toward water — and toward koi. The transition wasn’t symbolic so much as experiential. I needed to be inside the water rather than observing it from the shore.
Working more deeply with environments and landscapes had already begun to change how I thought about flora. In the Qilin pieces, magnolias emerged naturally. With the koi, that vocabulary evolved into lotus flowers and lily pads. They introduced another kind of presence — quieter, closer, almost hovering — shaping the space around the figures rather than framing them.
The koi are not isolated subjects here; they move through a living field. Water, plants, and body are interdependent, and the composition slows down accordingly. This work became both a learning process and a spiritual one — a study in attention, patience, and relational balance rather than momentum or transformation.
Natural Harmonics
Water → immersion, sensitivity, reflection
Lotus and koi share the same surface, neither dominating the space.
In life, this reflects a period of learning through presence — discovering that depth often arrives not through movement forward, but through staying with what surrounds you.

Koi no.2 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 29 X 38cm

I almost see this piece as a diptych, even though it isn’t one. It holds a quiet dialogue with the previous koi work — not as a pair, but as a continuation. The space feels shared, as if the water extends beyond a single frame.
Here, the relationship between the koi and the environment becomes more intimate. Lotus flowers and lily pads are no longer supporting elements; they actively shape the composition. They hover, overlap, and press into the same visual field as the fish, creating a layered surface where movement feels slowed and suspended.
What interested me was this sense of proximity — how forms almost mirror or echo one another without fully resolving. The koi appears both present and reflective, as if caught between motion and stillness. The work leans less toward narrative and more toward resonance, allowing the viewer to sense continuity without needing a fixed structure.
This piece deepened my understanding of how water functions in the series — not as setting, but as connective tissue. It reinforced the idea that some works speak sideways rather than forward, forming relationships that are felt rather than declared.
Natural Harmonics
Water → reflection, continuity, quiet dialogue
Lotus and koi share the same surface, neither leading nor following.
In life, this reflects moments of recognition — when connection doesn’t require symmetry, only presence.

Moon Crane no.1 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 29 X 38cm

Moon Crane no.2 - Oil, Watercolor, Ink on Paper - 29 X 38cm

These two moon cranes form part of a triptych, but for me the story is more clearly carried by the moon itself. I made a conscious decision not to include the day crane here. That absence is intentional and personal. What remains is a quieter, more intimate pairing — one that feels complete in its own rhythm.
The moon becomes the anchor. It holds time, repetition, and return, allowing the cranes to move not as symbols, but as companions in a process of rediscovery. While working on these pieces, I found myself learning again — testing new techniques, textures, and compositions, and letting instinct lead more than structure. The cranes became a way to explore expression without pressure, precision without rigidity.
There was a lightness in making these works. A sense of play, curiosity, and gratitude that reminded me why I make art in the first place. The joy was immediate and physical — I caught myself smiling as I worked. These pieces mark a moment of renewal, where discipline and delight met without conflict.
Natural Harmonics
Moon → reflection, renewal, quiet joy
The cranes circle the moon without urgency or hierarchy.
In life, this reflects returning to practice with openness — allowing joy, curiosity, and gratitude to guide the hand again.
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The following mythology pieces come from an earlier phase of my life. While they are part of my larger mythological language, they belong to a different story. These works were rooted in the body and the concept of the self. My current mythology has shifted outward — toward environment, community, and the spaces we inhabit together.
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Oil on Wood Panel: 92cm X 61cm

My New York Art Story marks a pivotal transition in my mythology practice. It was here that my work began moving beyond the body and into a dialogue with environment, where architecture, spirit, and energy could be felt as a single field.
New York felt like home in a way no other place had before, even more than Taiwan. While this shift fully unfolded later, after I returned to Asia, this moment stands as an early and essential stepping stone — the first expansion outward that reshaped how mythology would live in my work.
Koi - Oil on Wood

What's in a name? Mine sounds like a fish. As I have always pictured it swimming in between my thoughts, it reflects the light of memories and pushes the dreams along with its tail. Swimming through the silver waters of thoughts, I imagine myself fading in and out of the currents that spiral around its belly.
Feeling the refracted light as it touches my scales, I smile...

Oil on Wood Panel: 92cm X 61cm

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Water Horse - Oil on Wood

Jumping into the vastness of cobalt and indigo, a sense of fear and happiness surges through me. The stones feel strong underneath my feet while the air punches through my nose. Teasing me to move, challenging me to fly...

Oil on Wood Panel: 92cm X 61cm

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Orpheus - Oil on Paper

Holding light and grabbing at the aether. 
Speaking in tongues and gasping for air.
Its all within and all around you. 
Look too far ahead and you lose your place. 
Your place is here, where it's always been.

Oil on Paper: 96cm X 127cm

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Breath - Oil on Paper

As I drew my morning breath, the air flinched. 
Following the stillness. Exhaling my thoughts.
I can see the people all just walking in one direction. 
Away from smoke. 
Where are you going? Where are we headed? 
The answers seem too far to reach.
I walk towards the smoke...

Oil on Paper: 96cm X 127cm

Audrey & Amelyne - Oil on Wood

She sleeps for both of them now. Shoulders moving up and down I can almost hear our daughter laughing with us. Her eyes are closed, as if to dream
of what is to come. I can almost touch our newborn's hands. 
As I hold them, glowing in the warm amber sun, we live in life and dream.

Oil on Wood Panel: 92cm X 61cm

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Broome & Broadway - Oil on Wood

It's 2 in the morning and the sky is calm and clear. The streets feel more like my home than my actual apartment, and I like it this way. All I have in my rented room is a blowup mattress and a broken TV. Out here, the empty streets are filled with stories. As I turn the corner from Broome towards Broadway... 

Oil on Wood Panel: 92cm X 61cm

A Son's Promise - Oil on Wood

As they gallop, the fierce wind rips through their manes and blasts across their skin. Hearing the roar of the hooves, I reach out my arms to ride the team
across the sky. As powerful as the waves in Waimea, yet we never break.
Just the continued sensation of rush, speed and light.

Oil on Wood Panel: 92cm X 61cm

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The Woolworth - Oil on Wood

The day has finally arrived. The building has been standing patiently day after day, year after year, for the seal to open.  As the first morning sun falls on its eastern facade, its Gothic columns flexed and torqued. As it slowly emerges out of its former shell of concrete and steel, the morning commuters
who have walked the same path daily without even a second glance,
paused for the first time. Looking up, feeling its presence. 
Something was different...

Oil on Wood Panel: 92cm X 61cm

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