GROUP EXHIBITION

The Fissure of Perception: LI Manjin, MENG Yangyang, Misha Whitestone Gallery 2 May–6 June 2026 Taipei

Press Release

Whitestone Gallery Taipei is pleased to present Fissures of Perception. Following its debut in Beijing, the exhibition travels to Taipei in early summer, bringing together three Chinese artists: LI Manjin, MENG Yangyang, and Misha. The exhibition seeks to open a “fissure” within the canvas, allowing the external world and internal perception to permeate one another. Focusing on the visibility generated through the continuous flux of imagery, their practices inhabit a liminal space where consciousness and body, experience and reality pull against one another—gradually departing from the mimetic representation of the physical world in favor of a slow manifestation of internal perceptual processes. The exhibition opens on 2 May 2026 and runs through 6 June 2026.

LI Manjin: The Temporality of Consciousness

Li Manjin (b. 1981, Fujian; based in Beijing) graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Fujian Normal University. Through the repeated construction of scenes tied to daily life and emotion, her work captures the trajectories generated by an inner order. Her process avoids predetermined outlines; instead, forms gradually emerge through gestures of covering, dragging, and layering. Brushstrokes register subtle shifts in consciousness, as lines converge and dissolve, while color fields accumulate in successive layers, suggesting structures that remain in flux. Like geological strata, her paintings slowly build, suspending the unfolding of thought on the canvas. Li has held solo exhibitions in Beijing, Chongqing, Singapore, including the significant solo presentation Loner(Chongqing Changjiang Museum of Contemporary Art, Chongqing, 2017).

MENG Yangyang: The Spatiality of the Body

Meng Yangyang (b. 1983, Chongqing; based in Shanghai) received her MFA in Oil Painting from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. Focusing on the human figure and the body, she examines the conditions under which viewing occurs, as well as the capacity of images to establish intimacy. Rather than being narrative-driven, her works function as portals of seeing. The bodies she depicts are fragmented into subtle traces within space: a subdued tone, a partially emerging contour, a void opened through deliberate blankness. The form maintains a distance from the viewer, resisting recognition; the body becomes an interface that mediates the act of seeing rather than a subject to be represented. The meaning of the image no longer resides in the object itself, but gradually surfaces through the reorganization of perception. Meng has held solo shows in London, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, and Taipei including the significant solo exhibition, Barbie, Cells and Stones (MOCA Shanghai Pavilion, 2023).

Misha: The Materiality of Experience

Misha (b. 1991, Aksu, Xinjiang; based in Beijing) received her MFA in Oil Painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. She treats color as a vessel of experience, forming visual structures akin to “strata of perception.” The progression of color fields, the nuances of luminosity, and the subtly tilted spaces in her work correspond to the way memory settles within the body. Rooted in regional experience and psychological rhythms, her use of color imbues the canvas with a sense of directional and thermal flow. This creates a quality of “return,” where the weight of experience is delayed, preserved, and reactivated through the act of viewing. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Shang Art (Beijing) and Hi Art Center (Beijing), and she participated in the International Biennale of Women Artists (Macao, 2020).

Despite their differing visual languages, the three artists collectively point toward the fluidity and indeterminacy in the process of image generation. Within their works, forms no longer exist as stable entities but instead emerge gradually through displacement, delay, and reconfiguration. A “fissure” is not a rupture but an open structure that allows painting to remain ongoing. Consequently, the act of viewing shifts from the mere recognition of imagery to the perception of the generative process itself. These images remain in a state of perpetual incompleteness, maintaining a constant sense of co-presence with the viewer.