Each piece of artwork in “Submerged Luminaries,” spread across the walls spoke for itself in the form of paintings, sculptures and animations. Becoming immersed in the narratives of memory within each piece was inevitable, as each color and shape fused to create reflection, just as Yukin Zhang had experienced. The exhibit by Yukin Zhang, a senior majoring in fine arts, opened Wednesday evening at the Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery.

Zhang’s inspiration comes from childhood memories and fears that are reflected on as they resurface. In the exhibit, Zhang explores and confronts these emotions.

“As these hidden memories have started to come out, I’ve started to realize that the negative feelings that I’m feeling right now are because of fear I had when I was three or four years old,” Zhang said. “After realizing that, those negative feelings have started to go away. It’s a very magical experience, so I wanted to share it with other people.”

Karen Liebowitz, Zhang’s previous art professor and mentor through the creation of the exhibit, described this body of work as obscure and holding a lot of mystery.

“We can be unknown to ourselves, I think that’s where the idea of trauma and the title of submerged comes in,” Liebowitz said.

An eye-opening memory and a big inspiration for the creation of the exhibit came from Zhang’s fear of crowds. Or rather, overcoming this fear. Zhang said when she was around three or four years old, she was walking through a park with her grandma. 

“My grandma kind of let go of me,” Zhang said. “I had this feeling of being trampled upon … After that memory, I found this similarity and parallel between my phobia and that memory.”

Four pieces of artwork featured in the exhibit represent a series of realizations Zhang encountered through reflecting on childhood memories.

One of the featured pieces, a sculpture shaped like a body, has photographs from Zhang’s hometown of Shanghai, China, attached to it, with a vacuum-packed plastic bag over it. It represents the embodiment of all of Zhang’s childhood experiences.

“You have a feeling of being on the water and being submerged and maybe being suffocated,” Zhang said.

The next piece is a projection of a child running through a playroom. It’s full of shadows, small objects and glass walls showing an immersive world of nature just outside, with blues and greens projecting into the room.

“I remember being in this glass house with plants and sunshine and everything that’s very beautiful, but I was in the center of that room and children were playing games, and so there were kids running around me,” Zhang said. “It gave me a full panic attack, I was very scared of that, you know, just people running around me all the time.” 

The second painting is another panel, projected onto the wall. It shows a child running and getting lost behind a large blue statue in a red sky. Zhang said it represents a fear of the darkness and connects back to a memory of Zhang walking by a church at night, and fearing an unknown statue.

The third painting embodies someone very dear to Zhang: her grandmother. It’s a canvas painting, hung on the wall. The lower half of the painting is gloomy, gray and lifeless. An older woman, with a purple and gray mixed skin tone lays on what appears to be a hospital bed, dressed in a bright orange gown. She’s facing the ceiling but looking nowhere in particular. The top half of the painting is composed of yellow tiles with purple flowers, appearing to be a wall behind the woman.

Max Marshall, a USC alum who majored in art, grew pensive when viewing this piece. 

“I like the surreality of it, how there’s not really a sense of scale, because the floor is completely flat and then the tiles feel like they’re a lot bigger than they should be … it involves a sense of loss,” Marshall said. “From the age of the person in it, I would guess that this is a grandparent. That with the flowers kind of gives this sense of spirituality to it,”

Hattie Schultz, a Roski gallery coordinator and USC alum, was also drawn to this painting. 

“I think it’s about mortality because we have this figure that appears to be elderly or sickly based on the colors of the skin texture, lying in this bed which reassembles a hospital bed,” Schultz said. “But you also have this really vibrant yellow wall and the orange pops of colors and those flower details that are just hanging in the air. So there’s a lot of representations of death and sickness and slowing down, but also visual signs of life.”

The painting illustrates a recent memory for Zhang. It explores her grandmother’s experience with dementia, embodying a dying mind. 

“I’m trying to think about the physical form of us, and think about the mental form of us and then decide, what are we as a form, overall?” Zhang said. 

All pieces of work within Zhang’s gallery connect on one thing: reflection as a form of understanding and growth.

Liebowitz described Zhang’s work as personal, yet relevant within society today. The broader context within her work is important in making this point.

“If we can all agree that the personal is universal, I think that she’s digging deep and coming up with really unique expressions and that adds to the larger fabric of artistic dialogue and meaning for viewers,” Liebowitz said.

“Submerged Luminaries” will be on display until Oct. 2, Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Helen Lindhurst Fine Art Gallery.