GROUP EXHIBITION

The group exhibition The Under-stream brings together a selection of young artists who investigate the subsurface currents beneath the image—the concealed processes of its emergence. Rather than reproducing appearances, painting here functions as a complex mediation among visual mechanisms, psychological frameworks, and social perception—a dynamic system of mutual disclosure. As visual culture theorist W. J. T. Mitchell observed, an image is not an inert object but a ‘living form,’ characterised by its capacity to generate, transform, and return the gaze. It is within this generative capacity that painting establishes itself as a field of thought.

The exhibition presents works by eight young artists—Cao Jinyan, Guan Weiwei, Li Jun, Wang Qiqi, Wang Zichen, Zheng Jieyu, Zeng Zhen, and Zhou Chi—whose works engage with varied critical perspectives, including feminist consciousness, social rights, spatial philosophy, and digital humanity. Collectively, they establish a multi-layered visual discourse that intertwines desire, memory, social structures, and emotional resonance. Through distinct artistic lenses, these artists direct attention to which remains concealed or unarticulated—the subtle surges of emotion, the implicit order of social structure, the inertia of visual convention, the imprint of bodily experience, and the psychological frameworks latent within pictorial systems. The “under-stream” signifies a continuous, subconscious flow of awareness, while painting serves as its tangible emergence above that hidden current.

Cao Jinyan and Li Jun take female identity as a conceptual point of departure, interrogating the intricate relationships between womanhood, desire, and the gaze. Through a symbolically charged visual language, their work reframes issues of power and identity, placing the viewer in a liminal space of ambiguity and indeterminacy. Wang Qiqi and Zhou Chi, by contrast, focus on the body’s ‘latent form’—a vital presence that strives to break free and reconstitute itself despite dual pressures of social and self-construction. In their paintings, the body contorts or unfolds, conceals or expresses itself, articulating a visual grammar situated between pain and rebirth. Together, the four female artists converge identity and embodiment into an emerging field above the undercurrent: what they trace is not merely the physical body, but the oscillation of consciousness between discipline and liberation.

Guan Weiwei and Wang Zichen turn toward to philosophical and spatial speculation. Guan takes black as his point of departure, exploring the boundary between the visible and the concealed through stratified compositions in dark tones. Wang, by contrast, centers her practice on the concept of cosmic order, translating metaphysical awe into a visual language of structural coherence. Meanwhile, Zheng Jieyu and Zeng Zhen incorporate the logics of images, gaming, and virtual reality into their paintings, effectively reinscribing social memory and digital consciousness. While Zheng’s work engages with narratives of the past, Zeng’s orients toward those of the future. Both artists investigate the image—tracking its generation, differentiation, and recoding within contemporary visual environments—establishing a discursive space where the real and the virtual, expectation and actuality, are held in tension.

At this point, painting emerges as an external extension of human consciousness—not merely a record of the visible world, but a vessel for the generative logic that arises from the depths of awareness. The eight artists in this exhibition seek to move beyond the language- and narrative-centered paradigm of reason, returning instead to the self-sufficiency of the image and of sensory experience. Painting is no longer subordinate to language; it becomes an independent cognitive structure—a ‘conceivable object of expectation.’ This expectation arises from the absence, fragmentation, or ambiguity of meaning. Yet it is precisely through this incompleteness and deferral that the work drifts between illusion and reality. Within the under-stream lies the free drift of invisible thought; above it, the gradual emergence of the invisible into form. ​

Painting thus continues to function as an external manifestation of human consciousness—recording not only the visible world but also embodying the underlying logic of conscious experience. The eight artists in this exhibition seek to depart from rational paradigms centered on language and narrative, turning instead toward the autonomous capacity of the image and sensory perception. Painting ceases to function as an accessory to language and becomes an independent cognitive framework—an ‘object of anticipation.’ This anticipation is rooted in the absence, fragmentation, or ambiguity of meaning, and it is precisely through such incompleteness and deferral that the work occupies an ambiguous space between illusion and reality. Within the under-stream lies a free-floating realm of formless thought; above it unfolds the progressive development of the formless into visible form. ​

Curated by Han Yali