XINYI CHENG, EVELYN TAOCHENG WANG

Text by Fiona He

“Between the Shadow and the Highlight” marks the first duo exhibition in Beijing by two Chinese artists residing in Europe—Xinyi Cheng and Evelyn Taocheng Wang—featuring exhibition visual and space design by renowned Beijing designer and contemporary art collector Tian Jun. The genesis of this sincere exchange traces back to a serendipitous encounter in 2023 in the 10-years anniversary exhibition of Antenna Space, where their works were juxtaposed in the gallery. Beneath the immediate visual perception, their respective pieces reveal strikingly distinct appearances, yet share a subtle resonance in their deeper creative constructs: an undercurrent of restrained emotional expression and quietly turbulent intellectual deliberation.

The exhibition’s title employs the metaphorical pairing of “shadow” and “highlight”—seemingly opposing yet inherently symbiotic elements that have permeated the long history of artistic creation, particularly in painting. Interwoven within the tension of imagery and the dimensions of perception, they cyclically and dialectically emerge, constructing a transformative mechanism that shifts from physical form to spiritual realm—much like the waxing and waning of the moon, the shifting chiaroscuro of twilight, the dialectics of presence and absence, the liminality between reality and illusion, and the polarities of the viewer’s psyche. Designer Tian Jun, drawing from the spatial context of Beijing and integrating his unique interpretation, assimilation, and translation of history and culture, has sectioned nine exhibition units that stand independently yet forming a coherent narrative. This approach extends the physical dimensions of the space, not only accentuating the methodological divergences between Xinyi Cheng and Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s practices but also inviting viewers to engage in dialogue—and collective reflection—on intersecting themes such as “cultural translation,” “micro-narratives,” and “body politics.”

The two artists share a similar intellectual lineage: grounded in the formalist training of China’s 20th-century academic tradition, enriched by the influence of Euro-American contemporary art movements, and further distilled through their lived experiences as diasporic practitioners. Their works converge in their focus on the quotidian and the minute, probing the possibilities of visual translation between Chinese and Western cultures within a diasporic context. Whether capturing intimate emotions through portraiture or reconstructing identity politics through text and garments, their practices—like the interplay of “shadow” and “highlight”—quietly negotiate the thresholds of perception, revealing what lies concealed and concealing what might be revealed.

This exhibition, primarily centered on painting, unfolds around four key points: classicism, elegance, restraint, and the everyday. The two artists present a methodological contrast: Xinyi Cheng’s practice navigates an equilibrium between emotion and technique. Her works capture the subtle moods of daily life through controlled brushwork, continuously responding to—and expanding upon—the question of “how to express the emotional through the rational.” Evelyn Taocheng Wang, on the other hand, leans toward intellectual analysis, beginning with “why represent at all?” Her approach involves unconventional juxtapositions of imagery, transforming the linguistic traditions of Chinese classical painting inscriptions into contemporary visual symbols, and employing textual interventions such as appropriated monologues. While maintaining their distinct artistic identities, their works reveal deeper resonances through deliberate curatorial strategies—juxtaposition, spatial partitioning, and visual linkages—ultimately converging in their shared pictorial sensibility. By reconstructing fleeting fragments of the everyday (figures, animals, still lifes) through micro-narratives, they enact varying degrees of dissolution toward monumental storytelling, further reinforcing the underlying logic of the exhibition’s title: Between the Shadow and the Highlight.