Paradox and poem-objects
By Modestas Mankus • 21 January 2025
On a serene Saturday evening along King’s Cross Road, Purist Gallery’s group exhibition Paradox and poem-objects is showing from 18th to 25th of January 2025 to explore the complexity and interconnectedness of existence, challenging simplistic and binary definitions. Inspired by wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics, curators Tim C Huang and Huiyu Lan embraces this idea: seemingly contradictory phenomena may be complementary facets of a deeper truth, elusive from any single perspective. In Niels Bohr’s words “The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
The exhibition features a constellation of works by an intriguing list of artists: Tingru Chen, Yangrung Chen, Fiona Chen, Linjie Fang, Yingying Huang, Anyi Ji, Qinyang Li, Ya Luo, Justin Tu, Ziyi Wang, Mengqi Xia, Dongyun Xie, Bobby Zhaocheng Xiong, Odile Dian Yu, Zixiang Zhang, Qian Zhong.
The artworks invite audiences into a dynamic space of conflict, quandaries, and reconciliation, where the beauty of tension emerges. The exhibition encourages audiences to reconsider the limits of binary thinking, which is often shaped by desire, bias, and oversimplification. Good and evil, order and chaos, reality, and fiction—these opposites entwine and coexist, opening the door to new possibilities.
Paradox and Poem-Objects ultimately guides audiences toward a renewed perception of the world’s profound intricacies. By embracing the enigmatic and the contradictory, we uncover reservoirs of untapped creativity and poetic resonance, offering glimpses into the boundless potential of collective human understanding.
External view of Purist Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Photograph by Kyle Yuzhang Su.
The precise yet elusive brushstrokes in Qian Zhong’s Tame me (2025) and Ecstasy (2024) transport us to a secret gathering suffused with parallel currents of joy and anguish. Here, there is no darkness, only truths laid bare. The sparkling ice adorning the emerald dress radiates an overexposed brilliance, diffusing an aura of uncertainty into its surroundings. Odile Dian Yu’s A Walk in Hyde Park – Narrating with Signifiers (2024) mirrors this atmosphere of ambiguity, capturing the ordinary rhythms of walks through Hyde Park and the allure of Winter Wonderland. These recollections oscillate between the past and the future. Yet, perhaps in their translucent nature lies no definitive answer, only a lingering question.
Qian Zhong’s Tame me (2025), Ecstasy (2024). Courtesy of the artists and Purist Gallery. Photo by Kyle Yuzhang Su.
Mengqi Xia’s Cloud Atlas (3) (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Purist Gallery.Photo by Kyle Yuzhang Su.
Similarly, the semi-transparent acrylic layers in Mengqi Xia’s Cloud Atlas (3) (2020) evoke a sense of abstraction, where the interplay of indistinct line patterns resists recognition. This ambiguity invites the viewer into a liminal space—a fertile ground for introspection and healing, urging us to reconsider what it means to find an anchor amid flux.
Installation photo (from left to right): Qian Zhong’s Tame me (2025), Ecstasy (2024). Bobby Zhaocheng Xiong’s flower (2022), Mengqi Xia’s Cloud Atlas (3) (2020), Yangrung Chen and Justin Tu’s Greenhouse (2023). Courtesy of the artists and Purist Gallery. Photo by Kyle Yuzhang Su.
Adjacent to the radiant ensemble above is Bobby Zhaocheng Xiong’s flower (2022), situated on a sectional grassland that appears to pop unnaturally from the gallery floor. Visitors are encouraged to relax—sitting or lying down—to engage with the digital white bloom emanating from a CRT television. A focused blow seems capable of animating the flower, imbuing it with a startling sense of reality. Xiong envisions a dystopian world where flowers exist solely in digital form yet manifest physically throughout everyday spaces. His work persistently questions: When plants that evolved to absorb light begin to “radiate” it, what remains of the biological? Taking a divergent approach, Yangrung Chen and Justin Tu’s duo-display Greenhouse (2023) confronts similar themes with an elusive lens. Through a blend of VR elements and physical Lego sculptures, their concept positions viewers at the confluence of material and virtual realms. This thought-provoking fusion poses an essential inquiry: Can we envision modes of existence that transcend this duality?
Emerging from the formal arrays of monitor light, three artists delve into the fluidity and curvature found in nature. Anyi Ji’s Hidden currents are surging flows (2023) transforms the solidity of ceramics into an embodiment of movement and the enigmatic forces of vast natural and social phenomena. In contrast, her Forever moment (2023) emanates a softer vitality with delicate blue petals, revealing handcrafted forms in their most unrefined state.
Tingru Chen’s expansive sculpture End of Summer (2024) echoes these organic curves, presenting deathly white, hollowed tree forms that appear scorched beneath an imagined crimson sun. In this scene, a cicada, rendered entirely transparent through Chen’s choice of delicate resin, symbolizes fleeting impermanence. Reflecting on London’s shifting microclimates, Chen muses, “I embraced the darkness for a spark of summer.”
Installation view In a silent way (2024) at the Purist Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Courtesy of Dylan Williams and Purist Gallery. Photograph by Holli Xue from Nozirohpic Studio.
Meanwhile, art director Ziyi Wang’s film Golden Breaks the Dawn (2022) weaves motion into curves, swirling forested backdrops into a pool of liquid mercury. At the centre of this turbulent scene stands a diverse group of semi-masked figures adorned in mystical garments. Sharp-edged forms, maternal spider legs, candlelight, and ritualistic imagery collides, creating a scene that celebrates inclusivity across all colours, genders, and ages.
If summer and identities are impermanent, what endures? Qinyang Li’s Memories Are (2024) presents a physical paradox: a real black stone etched with the word “temporary”, and a hazy replica inscribed with “forever” beneath it. While the concept of impermanence is readily grasped, the notion of forever feels far more elusive to humanity. The sole presence in the gallery capable of witnessing eternity might well be the stone itself—fragmented from a vast river of geological time—yet even that falls short of true permanence.
In a similar exploration of transience, Kristen Dongyun Xie’s Falling Angel (2022) black-and-white photography strikes a delicate visual equilibrium. The lower section plunges into darkness deeper than the Abyss, while ethereal, snow-white geese—reminiscent of mythological Chinese nymphs—move with haunting order. What are they running towards? Visitors may seek answers by tracing the three directions implied by the geese’s heads, though what remains is simply the left.
By coincidence, the protagonist in Fiona Chen’s The boy – future (2020) gazes contemplatively to the left, seated in a rocking chair that suggests both stillness and movement. He seems to empty his mind, finding solace in the beauty of life’s everyday moments. Similarly, Yingying Huang’s One may revolt or simply rest and quietly take in the world (2024) invites audiences to closely observe botanical details, drawing them into a serene appreciation of the natural world. This quietude stands in stark contrast to the chaos of global events—how can such opposing forces coexist?
Linjie Fang’s The flow of an afternoon in life (1) (2) (2024) offers a perspective on this duality. Reflecting on memory, Fang writes: “Recalling all the details of a past afternoon in one afternoon, what exactly did I see. What I recall is not the real ripples on the water surface or the unique texture of plants, but only a poetic symbol. It is forgetting that shapes memories, and this behaviour seems to gradually distance me from the real world.”
Delving deeper into the micro, Zixiang Zhang’s Symbiosis (2024) captures the intricate growth of mycelium, expressed both sculpturally and biologically. Cascading like thousands of hands reaching hungrily for nutrients, the work explores the harmony between human fast-fashion waste and nature’s regenerative power. By juxtaposing mycelium-fabric as a novel material with the gradual decomposition of waste by mycelium, Zhang offers a poignant commentary on sustainability.
In a complementary vein, Mengqi Xia’s alternative practice involves dyeing fabric with human beverages over years. The subtle scent emanating from 2-Love is Vodka & Coke Pain is Vodka & Coke quietly permeates the room, evoking the entanglement of sorrow and love through two well-manufactured drinks. How far apart are love and vodka? While the answer remains elusive, Ya Luo’s Sandwiched No.3 (2024) and So Close (2024) investigate distances and pressures between organic forms. From the curator’s perspective, these pieces could symbolise abstract representations of human bodies or the delicate balance between the two halves of a coffee bean. The stacked, pliant shapes subtly allude to an interplay between internal and external forces, uncovering a fragile yet enduring stability.
Installation photo (from left to right): Ya Luo’s Sandwiched No.3 (2024) and So Close (2024). Courtesy of the artists and Purist Gallery. Photo by Kyle Yuzhang Su.
Building on this tension, the exhibition Paradox and poem-objects find a fitting conclusion in Luo’s intricate paintings. Two sides of a paradox may oppose one another yet remain connected by a certain distance—whether through overlapping logic, a parallel existence that never converges, or the vast emptiness of total vacuum. The delicate tension between “this” and “that” becomes the poetic wellspring of vitality.