Blue and Violet:
The Dialogue of Time
Zhang Xiaoming's Solo Exhibition
Curated by Ziyan Xu
Curated by Ziyan Xu
EXHIBITION DETAILS
ART021
Artist:
Isaac Andrews
Dien
Gu Shi
Hannah Lim
Xinrong He
Hongjun Lin
Long Huang
You Li
Yuxiao Ran
Ming
Wenjia Sun
Sean Powers
Jacob Rowlison
Wan Yang
Ioana Baltan
Curator:
Ziyan Xu
Producers:
Guo Jianguang
Support unit:
D&P Design
Lincoln
TUBAOHCC
GENZO
Opening: November. 13
November. 13 – November. 16, 2025
ADDRESS:
SHANGHAI EXHIBITION CENTER NO.1000 MIDDLE YANAN ROAD
With the successful conclusion of the 13th ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, XIMA GALLERY made its debut presentation featuring diverse works by artists: Isaac Andrews, Dien, Gu Shi, Hannah Lim, Xinrong He, Hongjun Lin, Long Huang, You Li, Yuxiao Ran, Ming, Wenjia Sun, Sean Powers, Jacob Rowlison, Wan Yang, and Ioana Baltan.Amidst the Shanghai Exhibition Center that gathered 141 galleries from around the world, XIMA GALLERY experienced firsthand the diversity and dynamism of the artistic landscape—where classical masterpieces coexisted with pioneering experiments, and local expressions intertwined with international perspectives. Within this vibrant artistic feast, the flowing crowds and continuous dialogues testified to the passionate vitality of contemporary art. The gallery gained profound inspiration from this experience, further solidifying its commitment to continuing its exploration within cross-cultural narratives.
- Artists Profile
Isaac Andrews
Isaac Andrews is a 22-year-old London-based artist and curator. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Chelsea College of Arts and is expected to receive his/her Master's degree from the Royal College of Art in 2026.His works are held in international private collections, and he has collaborated with brands such as Miu Miu, Off-White, and Converse. Andrews has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and his curated group shows have been covered by various media outlets, including i-D, Dazed, 10 Magazine, Office Magazine, Hypebeast, and Shadowplay Magazine. Through portraiture and details of daily life, his work evokes the unassuming warmth of kinship, love, and friendship. Characterized by dynamic lines and textured backgrounds that preserve the innate warmth and breathing quality of wood grain, his paintings resonate with an intimate, lived-in tenderness.
Dien
Dean (b. 2001, Beijing) is a Chinese-Italian artist based in London. Dean's practice merges traditional forms with contemporary techniques, bridging past and present to construct a dialogue between craftsmanship and the digital. His work explores individuality and the intimate narratives embedded within urban landscapes.He employs 3D-printed frames, inspired by architectural forms encountered in daily life, which serve as organic extensions of his painted narratives. These structures invite viewers to reflect on the architectures we inhabit and how such spaces shape our perceptions. By transforming everyday experiences into intimately cherished artifacts, Dean's work resonates with the profoundly personal yet universal rhythms of urban life.Dean holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (2023).
Gu Shi
The work of Artist Gu Shi explores the condition of ordinary people caught in the wave of commercialization. By examining discarded objects placed in building corridors, the artist reveals the material reality of urban dwellers within a rapidly commercializing society and reflects their transient, ever-shifting ways of life. These items, overflowing from private households into public spaces, act as metaphors for the rapidly expanding consumer desires of our time—like dried fish left stranded on the beach after the tide of euphoria recedes. These relics of desire, having been momentarily filled, saturated, and revelry, are ultimately left in a state of perpetual thirst. Through the artist’s liberated imagination, visual deconstruction, and distorted collaging, ordinary everyday objects are infused with a sense of unfamiliarity, provocation, and a manufactured, fast-food-like aesthetic. This approach revitalizes commonplace items, disrupts the numbness brought by overfamiliarity, and constructs a ambiguous reality that floats between truth and illusion—offering a critical and ironic perspective on the realities we often take for granted.
Hannah Lim
Hannah, born in 1998, is a London-based artist working in sculpture, installation, and painting. She earned a BA in Sculpture from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in Fine Art from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Her practice serves as a means of exploring her cultural identity. As an individual of mixed Chinese-Singaporean and British heritage, her work examines the relationship between these cultures, investigating how this dynamic has historically been reflected in furniture design, objects, and architecture. She has developed a strong interest in the 18th-century design trend of Chinoiserie, during which Chinese design and cultural elements were reinterpreted, imitated, and fused with European aesthetics and tastes. In both her large and small-scale works, decorative and functional design merge into one. Her own snuff bottle-inspired pieces are significantly larger than traditional designs and are often anthropomorphized, featuring arms, legs, and eyes. They do not, however, contain snuff. Instead, they are intricately ornate, resembling genuine snuff bottles in their elaborate detail. Initially, she designed her own snuff bottles to highlight certain aspects of her personal tradition. Over time, however, these vessels gradually evolved to reflect different points of inquiry emerging from her research.
Xinrong He
Xinrong He, a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was born in1999. She obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Mural Painting from the China Academy of Art (CAA) in 2022 and a Master's Degree in Fine Arts from CAA in 2025.
As Li Bai once wrote,“Heaven and earth are the inn for all things, and time is the passing guest of a hundred generations.”My creative inspiration stemsfrom an ongoing contemplation of the finitude of life and the traces of existence — though an individual life may be but a speck in the vast flow of time, it nevertheless leaves indelible marks upon the world.Against this backdrop, my work focuses on the visualization of“material memory” and “traces of presence.” Employing the ancient medium of tempera, I capture those subtle moments in daily life where people and objects permeate and shape one another. In doing so, I seek to treat each image as a tangible field that embodies“presence,” thereby responding to fundamental questions concerning memory, trace, and time.
Hongjun Lin
Hongjun Lin employs a unique visual language with contemporary appeal, focusing on individual emotions and existential value while also engaging in self-reflection. As viewers move through the exhibition spaces of different series, they perceive society as a vast, complex, and dynamic system characterized by uncertainty, contingency, randomness, chaos, and disorder. For Hongjun Lin, “possibility” is indeed richer than “reality,” and her works represent her continuous quest for such possibilities and uncertainties in the face of reality’s probing questions. She uses parallel spaces to map a third potentiality that lies beyond reality and imagination. Her research explores how people acquire their identities and construct their own worlds, as well as the narcissistic and antisocial behaviors that arise in this process. The imagined deities and spiritual beasts in her work, through their metamorphic states, reflect the complex identities of individuals and the chaotic forms underlying their sense of self—revealing the true self liberated from social expectations and constraints. Through her stream-of-consciousness abstract semiotic schemata, Lin deconstructs, reconstructs, and reimagines visual time and space, engaging in a rediscovery and re-evaluation of visual value. With an open-minded approach to thinking, she creates unrestrained artworks, awaiting uncertain answers one after another.
Long Huang
Long Huang's artistic practice springs from an indistinct yet persistent sensation—an inarticulable urban longing. I perceive it as a synesthetic experience common to modern citizens, a psychological resonance that transcends time and space, echoing continuously. This yearning is neither attachment to specific places nor anticipation of the future, but rather an emotional trigger for 'perceived space'—forgotten, semi-constructed, and partially imagined realms. The series draws inspiration from fragmented images I capture while wandering through cities, as well as from the online aesthetic phenomenon of 'Poolcore': deserted swimming pools, oversaturated skies, and glass facades shimmering with cold, illusory light under the sun. These visual motifs evoke collective memories of the millennial turn—that peculiarly half-futuristic, half-nostalgic atmosphere. That era was characterized by both blind optimism toward technological utopia and the misappropriation of modernist architectural ideals: swimming pools, hotels, sunrooms, and suburban courtyards became sites that embodied both desire and emptiness. Through improvisational composition, I introduce animals into these spaces. They function as gazing subjects while simultaneously existing as foreign intrusions. Their presence further evacuates the already hollow 'retro-futuristic' landscapes, revealing architecture's fractured nature as vessels of ideology. These animals carry no symbolic meaning—they serve as surrogates for primal perception, embodying the very physicality of 'seeing' itself. I employ unnatural lighting, anomalous color schemes, and manipulated transparencies to create effects of 'subconscious illumination.' Here, perspective doesn't convey spatial reality but leads toward mnemonic illusions. Swimming pools and gardens recur as motifs—simultaneously symbols of leisure landscapes and metaphors for individuals trapped in a society of spectacle. The recurring 'handrails' throughout the series constitute a guiding mechanism I've embedded. They function as spatial relics and visual anchors, allowing viewers to establish momentary connections with the imagery before being directed toward the next uncertain vista.
You Li
You Li, born in Mudanjiang in 1986, graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. Her works are held in the collections of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Taikang Art Project. Her practice continuously explores themes of self-awareness, healing, and personal growth. From earlier series such as Capsuleand Medical Basinto History Lesson, and more recently, the Bodyand Fruitseries, she attempts to dissolve the sense of loss and anxiety prevalent in contemporary life through artistic form. Her recent works employ backlit fruits to symbolize the relationship between the individual and the environment, using warm, gentle light to console the psyche, embodying a more tender form of strength. In recent years, she has held solo and group exhibitions in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, such as the 2023 solo exhibition "Holy Relic" and the two-person exhibition "Fruit and Waiting." In 2008, she received the Outstanding Young Artist Award from the Zuo You International Art Festival.
Yuxiao Ran
Ran Yuxiaowas born in Chengdu, China. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, USA in 2020, and received his Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the Royal College of Art in London, UK in 2023. He currently lives and works in London, UK.
The works are taken from an animal series I created this year. I have always held a subtle, one-sided affection for animals—a feeling that is both alien and intimate. The alienation comes from their cross-species nature and the barrier of language, while the intimacy stems from the relative simplicity of their behaviors compared to humans. Although I did not consciously put myself into the roles of these birds and beasts during the creative process, looking back at the finished pieces, I can always glimpse traces of my own state of mind at the time of painting through their final postures and the environments they inhabit. I wonder if this is an unconscious way of using objects to express myself. Perhaps my focus will shift from animals back to humans. Would such a scene cast me more as an observer or a participant? I'm curious to see.
Ming
Ming's work, imbued with elegance and power, invites us to experience the world through a deeply felt spectrum of emotions. His artistic style is a fusion of figurative expressionism and neo-romanticism, richly infused with elements of Chinese landscape painting and the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy. His artworks radiate a refined elegance and sensuality.Through the use of graphic distortion and elongated forms, Ming evokes themes of desire and heartbreak, while simultaneously capturing distinct moods: loneliness, steadfast hope, and reverence. Symbolism plays a significant role in his art, often drawing from Chinese legends and mythology.Ming employs a diverse material practice in his creations, pushing the boundaries between different media to explore unseen connections and hidden meanings. His recurring themes revolve around human interconnectedness, the relationship between fear and perception, and the constant interplay between the choices we make and those we let slip away.Ming innovatively mixes painting with textile manipulation, transforming flat surfaces into three-dimensional sculptures. This fusion blurs the boundaries between painting and sculpture, creating a unique experience that encourages deeper emotional connection and contemplation, ultimately redefining how we engage with art.
Wenjia Sun
Wenjia Sun(born 1986 in Fujian, China) graduated from the College of Fine Arts at Fujian Normal University. He has long been dedicated to exploring diverse forms of lacquer art, continuously expanding the boundaries of the medium. His works span 2.5-dimensional, three-dimensional, spatial, scenographic, and performance-based expressions.Choosing lacquer as his primary medium, his creations embody an Eastern mystique while adopting the forms of contemporary sculptural installations, establishing a distinctive style among young artists. Possessing a keen sensitivity toward art and creation, he skillfully integrates contemporary abstract art with the resonance of historical narratives, unifying the spiritual and material dimensions in his works.His lacquer installation series, *Evolution of Objects*, seeks to explore the temporal evolution of individual creation within the long river of history from the perspective of human artifice. It investigates and perceives the traces left by individual artistic creation in the post-industrial and intelligent eras—what he describes as the "shape of time." Using natural lacquer as the primary medium, the series attempts to excavate the essential language of lacquer, fully showcasing and utilizing its properties of sealing and preservation. In this form of a time capsule, it captures the artist's individual consciousness.His work offers a completely new perspective through which to view the artistic expression of Chinese lacquer art.
Sean Powers
Sean Powers (born 1992) is an American artist living and working in London, UK. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014 and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2024. He is also the recipient of the Cass Art Award Student Prize 2024.My paintings function as ecotones, existing between multiple states. An ecotone is a transitional zone where distinct ecosystems meet and overlap, fostering rich biodiversity. I am drawn to this concept as a framework for creating paintings that contemplate multiple, layered experiences. My work focuses on post-human perceptions of both painting and nature. I find a parallel between the intelligence of painting and the intelligence of the natural world—both explore transcendent and abstract perspectives through materiality and process. Observing nature through painting becomes a way of looking toward the future through the lens of our origins.
Jacob Rowlison
In Disney's *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* (1937), as Snow White wanders through the haunted forest, she sees terrifying things lurking in the darkness. Trees appear as grotesque, grasping faces, floating logs transform into alligators, and branches seem to reach for her dress with sharp claws. Yet, after she collapses in fear, those frightening eyes are revealed to belong to soft, gentle rabbits. In the world of fairy tales, it is always worth taking a second look.This idea is explored by British artist Jacob Rawlinson in his new exhibition, *Færie Lands*, at the Dowes Art Museum. The exhibition takes visitors on a unique journey through the shadowy forests of fantasy literature and popular culture. Here, vibrant Disney characters inhabit woods reminiscent of medieval tapestries, eccentric boots are transformed into Green Man masks, and swordplay takes on entirely new meanings.Through the works in *Færie Lands*, Rawlinson deftly unveils the subtle undertones always present within tales of great swords, male camaraderie, and enchanted forest romances. Medieval historians suggest that understandings of sex and gender in medieval art and literature were far more fluid and complex—a nuance rarely reflected in our modern retellings. With humor, Rawlinson reintroduces the homoerotic undertones omitted from Disney's adaptations, showing us that queer history isn't something to be feared. After all, it might just be the gentle rabbits hidden deep within the woods.
Wan Yang
Wan Yang, born in 1992, is an independent artist. She graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2015 and earned her Master's degree from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2017. Firmly believing in art's power to shape the future, Wan Yang regards her works as authentic expressions of her worldview.Her acclaimed works have been included in prestigious permanent collections: *Summer Prelude* is held by the Koperluzos Art Museum in Greece, *The Outsider* by the CAFA Art Museum, and *Comfort Zone* by the Artron Art Center. Her art has been exhibited globally at renowned galleries and institutions, including solo exhibitions such as *HALATION* at Bromfield Gallery, Boston (2018); *Latent Light* at Artron Art Center, Shenzhen (2020); *Absent Gem* at Gorgeous Eyes Gallery, Beijing (2022); and *Phantom* at 30 Space, Beijing (2023).Beyond her independent practice, Wan Yang actively engages in cross-disciplinary collaborations. On World Sleep Day 2023, she partnered with Simmons® to launch the "Dreams Renew Life" art project. That same year, she collaborated with Coach and UCCA to create the Hainan-exclusive collection "Illusory Splendor." In 2024, H&M collaborated with Wan Yang to integrate dragon-inspired motifs—drawing from the upcoming Year of the Dragon—into her representative "Wave Series," crafting a poetic and aesthetically striking fashion collection for the Chinese New Year, which debuted impressively at the 6th China International Import Expo. In 2025, SK-II collaborated with Yang Wan to launch the "Endless Love" series, releasing a limited-edition Valentine's Day gift set that uses gradient colors and heart motifs to symbolize the deepening and enduring nature of love.In the art market, Wan Yang has demonstrated outstanding performance, maintaining a position within the top three best-selling artists on the Artand platform for five consecutive years from 2019 to 2024, and securing the number one spot in 2020, 2021, and 2022. She was honored as the Most Valuable Artist by Artand in 2021, received the Artand Annual Artist award in 2022, and was recognized as an "Extraordinary Chinese Woman" by Rayli magazine in 2023.
Ioana Baltan
Ioana Baltan, originally from Drăgomirești, Dâmbovița, Romania, now lives and works in London. She earned a Teaching Training Degree and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting (2015) from the National University of Arts in Bucharest. Her academic journey also included a scholarship at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, culminating in a Master’s degree in Painting Creation Strategies from the National University of Arts in Bucharest.Baltan’s work centers on contemporary female figures, often portrayed with smooth, wrinkle-free faces and flawless synthetic hair. Her large-scale pieces explore female archetypes and their historical representations—from angelic icons of beauty and grotesque monsters to spiritual warriors and, more recently, animated plastic imitations. Baltan’s urban goddesses are enveloped by dreamlike landscapes, cosmic elements, wildlife, and artificial lighting, creating a visual tension between idyllic fantasy and the raw realities embedded in contemporary narratives of womanhood.Her provocative and vibrant works invite viewers to move beyond superficial interpretation and engage in deeper reflection. Baltan has exhibited her work in Mallorca and has taken part in group and solo exhibitions in Bucharest, Spain, London, and Italy.
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LOCATIONS
Lan Art Center: No. 2596, Boao Road, Yingfeng Street, Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Chinia
Heng Museum: Intersection of Lingfeng Street and Xusi Road, Qutang, Xihu District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
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