Exhibition "Fern of the Ruins"

Fang Lei — Dissolution, Decline and Reconfiguration of Living Forms

Fang Lei's work explores the transformations of living matter through the lens of time and perception. Through photography, the artist captures forms caught in states of transition, metamorphosis or decline, blurring the boundaries between sensory experience and objective reality. Diffuse chromatic veils, moving textures and dynamic blur effects progressively dissolve the recognisable contours of subjects, transforming plant forms into subtle compositions of colour, light and rhythm. This disintegration of form becomes a means of exploring the way our gaze continuously reconstructs the real.

Within the context of FOUGÈRE DES RUINES, Fang Lei's works respond with great sensitivity to the notions of fragility and temporality that run throughout the exhibition. The faded petals of violet irises, marked by creasing, alteration and discolouration, reveal the visible traces of time's wear, while flowers that have reached the very end of their bloom still retain a quiet tension. By making the plant a metaphor for existence, the artist brings to light the dignity that persists in the face of time's irreversible erosion, offering a poetic meditation on disappearance, transformation and the persistence of life.

Jiang Wei — Material Traces, Chromatic Narration and Abstract Metaphors of Nature

The works presented by Jiang Wei take the form of abstract paintings executed in mixed media, their language rooted in the expressiveness of matter and the intensity of colour. Built through generous layers of paint, they also incorporate processes of scraping, cracking and erosion that make the very materiality of the medium the primary vehicle of expression. Freed from all figurative reference, his practice explores the evocative capacities of the pictorial surface, where tensions between warm and cool tones, chromatic expansions and craquelure effects compose a visual narrative of energy, transformation and the sedimentation of time.

Within the context of FOUGÈRE DES RUINES, Jiang Wei's works enter into dialogue with the notions of remnant and material memory that pervade the exhibition. The cracks, fissures and traces left by gestures of construction and alteration become the visible manifestations of time's passage. Between strength and fragility, agitation and calm, destruction and regeneration, these pictorial surfaces reveal matter's capacity to preserve the imprints of its own becoming and to give rise to a poetics of change.

Luo Xiangzhong — Contemporary Translation of Ink, Evocative Forms and Inner Narrative

The works of Luo Xiangzhong are rooted in a contemporary reinterpretation of ink painting. Drawing on the traditional resources of the brush, variations in ink density and coloured washes, the artist brings together the heritage of Chinese literati painting and a resolutely contemporary sensibility. Figures are progressively simplified, distorted or merely suggested, while lines and masses of ink acquire an increasing autonomy. Moving from intimate scenes to more abstract experimentations, his work traces a journey from representation towards evocation.

Within the context of FOUGÈRE DES RUINES, Luo Xiangzhong harnesses the fluidity and unpredictability of ink to explore the traces left by existence and states of inner vulnerability. Ink projections, deliberately blurred contours and subtle chromatic contrasts become visual projections of a sensibility marked by introspection, distance and fragility. Without resorting to explicit symbolism, the artist constructs a space of emotional resonance in which the pictorial matter translates, with quiet restraint, the most discreet movements of human experience.

Liang Kaixuan — Figurative Expressionism, Pictorial Materiality and Narratives of Existence

Liang Kaixuan's paintings belong to a figurative expressionism whose strength lies in the materiality of the medium. Through the intensive use of impasto and the palette knife, the artist accumulates layers, relief and gestural marks that lend his works a particularly assertive physical presence. The figures depicted escape strict realism in favour of simplified, distorted or exaggerated forms, while the often restricted palette reinforces the psychological intensity of the compositions. This constant tension between figuration and transformation gives rise to a deeply subjective visual language.

Within the world of FOUGÈRE DES RUINES, Liang Kaixuan's works echo the questions of ruin, alienation and vulnerability that run throughout the exhibition. The visual ruptures produced by the matter itself, the fragmented silhouettes and the atmospheres of distance and discomfort translate the tensions that the individual faces in the contemporary world. The accumulations of paint thus become the material equivalents of the marks left by time, revealing with great intensity the fragilities and resistances that shape existence.

Zhou Baiwen — Contemporary Gongbi, Natural Temporalities and Reinterpretation of Landscape

Zhou Baiwen's works combine the traditions of gongbi and polychrome landscape painting with a contemporary approach to the image. Through meticulous draughtsmanship and the use of pigments in rich and luminous tones, the artist depicts abundant natural environments populated by animals, plants and seasonal phenomena. His panoramic compositions bear witness to a particular attentiveness to the rhythms of the living world, while the precision of detail enters into dialogue with the expressive intensity of colour.

Within the context of FOUGÈRE DES RUINES, his work offers a reflection on the forms of coexistence that bind living beings to their environment. The textures of animal skin, shimmering plumage and the chromatic variations of the landscape become so many sensory manifestations of time and growth. Drawing on the rigour of line and the richness of pictorial matter, Zhou Baiwen proposes a serene vision of the natural world, in which permanence and transformation find expression within a fragile yet enduring equilibrium.

Zhou Zhitao — Transmedia Experimentation, Multiple Narratives and Attentiveness to the Living

Zhou Zhitao's practice unfolds across a wide range of media, from painting to watercolour, from installation to performance. His artistic trajectory bears witness to a gradual evolution, from the contemporary reinterpretation of cultural symbols to broader reflections on urbanisation, marginalised groups, individual freedom and questions relating to life itself. His visual language combines expressionism, social observation and a conceptual approach in order to construct complex narratives in which critique, memory and human experience intersect.

Within the context of FOUGÈRE DES RUINES, Zhou Zhitao's works resonate with the themes of change, vulnerability and persistence. Through the accumulation and confrontation of materials, the artist connects the traces of history to contemporary concerns, situating his work within a broader reflection on care, responsibility and the human condition. This attentiveness to fragile forms of existence lends his work a profoundly empathetic dimension, in which the critique of reality gradually gives way to a meditation on the protection and value of life.