In today’s fragmented life, a question we constantly face is how to preserve enough time for an item or an event in our lives, which happens to be the topic the artist intends to explore in his exhibition: how much time can we preserve for a plant at home? How much time can we allocate for a movie or a novel? And how much time do we have to say goodbye to a loved one at a funeral? In an era of information explosion and fast consumption, time seems to always be compressed, and fragmented time has changed the way we interact with the world. Taking a photo, watering a plant – these simple actions might be the only interaction we have with a flower. Nowadays, finishing a movie or novel in five minutes has become the norm, and the final moments of saying goodbye to loved ones may only last a few days.

Since 2022, the artist has gradually turned to creating novels and paintings, delving deep into the profound connections between time, people and objects. For the artist, creation is a “residency” with a certain relationship, person, or object. A novel is the artist’s sedimentation of a place and relationships. Time here can be present, two or three years ago, or even three or four hundred years ago. The same goes for painting, which carries the artist’s interaction with a person or a relationship – it could be just one day, several months, years, or a lifetime.

The two series of works in this exhibition, “Clam” and “Potted Plants,” attempt to break the fragmented way of life in such time residency and explore a deeper connection. Driven by the same spirit, “Give You an Orange” the theme work of the exhibition, expresses the artist’s profound thoughts on longer and more sincere relationships between people and objects.

The exhibition is not only an artistic exploration of time and relationships but also a reflection and questioning of how we “reside” in this world, with others, and with ourselves.

Gallery