Zhang Lanpo
Examples of honoring and commemorating founding heroes abound throughout history, both in China and abroad. This is, in itself, a fascinating phenomenon. Whenever conquerors arrive in history, they invariably tell the people that the long-awaited light has come together with their swords and spearheads. Thus, for various reasons and motivations, people begin to stage moving dramas of “bathing in sunlight” amid the darkness of night. Naturally, heroes become one of the eternal themes of this radiant light. Yet in reality, heroes who have killed without restraint are seldom spared the fate of being discarded once their usefulness ends. With predators waiting behind predators, only a rare few are fortunate enough to relinquish power peacefully over a cup of wine. When heads are displayed in the marketplace, the crowd of onlookers likely still includes those who once lined the streets to welcome them.
In Zhang’s Lingyan Pavilion series, he assembles imagined portraits of civil and military officials who expanded territory through conquest and slaughter, using the ashes of abandoned, anonymous individuals. He does not intend these works to correspond to historical records. Grass overtakes desolate tombs; blood soaks the dust of campaigns.
From ancient tribes to imaginable futures, humanity has endlessly forged covenants—old and new—woven like spider webs. Protection and persecution coexist. In The Book of Covenants, he depicts lives extinguished like weeds beneath these shadows.
By closely observing death itself, Zhang encountered the silent yet forceful other half of the world—sweeping away illusion, levelling desire, cleaving into the future. In its shadow, cells divide with crackling intensity—life sprouting, growing.
Shen Zhonghai
Shen's creative thinking originates from an inquiry into the essence of photography and the practice of an experimental spirit. In 2022, when AI imagery first emerged, he did not stop at the discussion of whether it would replace photography. Instead, he first generated a group of works using AI, and then transformed them through the earliest processes of photographic invention, forming a cyclical dialogue.
He does not adhere rigidly to historical authenticity. Rather, he stands in the present, integrating contemporary ideas and technologies in experimental practice. Different from the ancients, different from contemporaries, and different from himself. It is about activating tradition so that, within a contemporary context, something new may grow from tradition.
As a technology introduced from abroad, photography has often led Chinese artists into imitation and following, both in technique and concept. They are accustomed to perfecting the path from 1 to 10, yet rarely create from 0 to 1.
Shen’s works represent an experimental revolution. Facing the future proliferation of AI imagery and virtual worlds, he firmly believes that art needs expression with warmth and material presence more than ever.
Coming from tradition and moving toward the future - the creative path that belongs to our time.
Huang Jun
Using a ninety-nine-metre scroll of Xuan paper
as his canvas, the artist conducted an ink performance
on the beach in Cairns, Australia. This land is home
to Indigenous Australian communities, while the
artist, as a member of the Miao ethnic group from
Guizhou, China, likewise carries a profound Indigenous
cultural heritage.
With the concept of a gift as its medium, the work both
highlights the lineage of Chinese culture and conveys a gesture of friendly exchange. Through the bridge of art, it demonstrates the mission of contemporary Chinese artists in the new era: to tell China's story well and to promote cultural exchange between China and Australia, bringing positive energy to Chinese culture as it reaches
the world.
Gao Kang
In the present era, a cross-generational tool has once again emerged: artificial intelligence, seemingly endowed with limitless potential. However, to truly employ this revolutionary tool for creative practice - rather than mere replication or collage - we must first confront a question that is increasingly shared across society: how can we cultivate sharper perception and deeper sensibility than ever before?
This question has always been fundamental to artistic creation across cultures and eras. Today, however, it no longer belongs solely to artists; it has become the very foundation for effectively engaging with new tools in this century.
How, then, can we extract the primordial fire of art and transform it into a methodology - one that empowers people to act, remains unthreatened by AI, and ensures human agency over its use? This is the central challenge Gao Kang has sought to unravel in recent years through his artistic practice.
Guo Liwei
Through fluid brushwork on paper, Guo reconstructs natural imagery, transforming the spiritual essence of traditional Chinese landscape painting into a contemporary visual language.
His works are both a reflection on the classical philosophy of the unity of heaven and humanity and a meditation on the ecological fractures brought about by rapid urbanisation. Landscape, in his practice, is no longer mere scenery - it becomes a mirror reflecting the evolving relationship between humanity and nature.
Huang Azhong
The colour of Western Impressionism absorbed the expressive spirit of the East. Van Gogh's powerful chromatic lines trace a poetic starry sky; Monet's Rouen Cathedral uses painterly colour to express morning, dusk, evening and mist; Renoir's Mother and Child narrates through colour and sentiment.
The oil paintings Huang presents in this exhibition have a style different from Impressionist colour. These expressive colours are personal, while also embodying a fusion of Eastern and Western traditions, integrating the freehand spirit of Chinese painting into Western oil painting.
When he paints these small works, the colours on his palette are not complex. By blending a limited number of colours, allowing them to merge with one another, and perhaps adding only a subtle adjustment, colour becomes emotional, poetic, meaningful and atmospheric.
We must build confidence in our own culture. Eastern and Western painting need dialogue, and art needs exchange.
Luo Wei
The Larvae series focuses on the builders who move quietly and tirelessly through the city, using artistic language to reflect on the individual and the times.
With the accumulation of life experience, Luo has come to understand that creation requires sincerity and humility. It should return to life itself and convey an understanding of existence.
During the pandemic, in Shanghai's Nanxiang Guyi Garden after a heavy rainstorm, rainwater soaked his sketchbook, causing the lines to spread into a natural, unfinished texture. This made Luo realise that creation need not pursue perfection; those traces carrying the warmth of life are precisely the truest portrayal of life.
He dried these rain-soaked sketches and brought this unfinished warmth into his creative practice. For Luo, art is a return to the lived moment - an honest expression that conveys reverence for both the times and life itself.
