On November 5th, we released an open call for our next group exhibition called “RETURN”, inviting everyone to interpret the word RETURN from their own perspectives and turn their interpretations into artistic expression. At the Arbre Art Centre, all the artistic expressions will be exposed for communicating with the audiences.
During the 15-day open call period, Arbre Art Centre has received submissons from not only professional artists, but also many art lovers who are passionate about creating their own works. All the exhibition spaces have successfully found their “owners”. We have been deliberating about the exhibition flow again and again around the theme of this exhibition, hoping to present as many art works in the space as possible.
In this exhibition, we have excluded the participation of the curators’, and hope that the newly merged art works can interact with each other. In this exhibition, we turn the audiences into an organic media who can merge the boundary between the artists and the function of curators to reflect on the theme of the exhibition spontaneously.
After times of “mental struggle”, we have even opened up a 13th exhibition space (our small storeroom). Finally, we came up with a confirmed final list of all the artists who will be exhibiting their works in our first group exhibition.
We sincerely apologize to those who have not been selected for this open call. The space of the Arbre Art Centre is limited, and we are not able to include all the wonderful pieces in one time. However, we do have plans for another collective exhibition in the near future. So stay tuned for the information from our Wechat public account. We would love to see your work again!!
Exhibitor List
Catarina Braga
b.1994, Portugal. Lives and works in Shenzhen, China. Graduated in Fine Arts - Multimedia (BA) by the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (2016), and the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna, Austria (2015). Recent exhibitions include: The World is not the World solo exhibition in Banana Jam Gallery (Shenzhen, 2019); her participation in the Shenzhen International Art Fair ‘18; the collective exhibition Artist Is Present (Shenzhen, 2019), and the collective exhibition Staged (1933 Space, Shanghai, 2017). CHANG Cheng Graduated in Photography: The Image & Electronic Arts (MA), by University of London, Goldsmith. Cheng Chang, a multi-media artist, is currently using the words of paintings and sculptures to express his own understanding of the environmental situations around him. He questions about the contemporary society, art and poetry. By using simple repeating motions to create the “so- called” art, the expression of the work is trying to challenge the manifestation of the autocracy. CHEN Anran Born in Shenzhen, China, currently studies Photography (BA) at The School of Visual Arts. An ordinary person who has a well-rounded personality, and wants to try everything.
Podi CHEN Taiwan photographer, PODI is armed with passion, creativity, and a unique perspective of photography. His creative approach to photography is to create a strong impression of the external form with an implied narrative buried within.
Jouv Darling
Jouv Darling comes from Canada. She lives in Guangzhou, runs a creative writing group and considers climbing mountains a lot. She’s thinking about... buying a lizard but can’t afford it. And yes, it’s true. Toronto is very cold. She’s made an unpublished series of comic books called Micro about her first year teaching in China. She is currently working on her first two novellas, “Out of the River, Into the Cave” and “Paula” which incorporates the fairy tale structure and SF genre to explore identity, motherhood and an individual’s relationship to their emotions. She also runs the writing workshop group, The Illiterati in Guangzhou.
LAI Yuqing
Graduated in Photography: The Image & Electronic Arts (MA), by University of London, Goldsmith. Yuqing Lai is a mixed media artist who uses images, films, sounds and installation to create an illusion. She manipulates words, daily objects and crafts to create a visual poem shifting the ambiguous boundary between reality and dream. All her works indicate her profound interest in languages, consciousness and unconsciousness.
LI Tianjun
b.1999, China. Lives and studies in Guangzhou, one of the youngest visual artists who held a solo exhibition in South China. He has been exploring the diversity and creativity of photography and attempting to create a new visual dimension between photography and painting. Li’s art practice currently focuses on exploring the possibility of coexistence of multifarious photographic subjects. In Li’s images, a new visual order was formed by superimposing, reorganizing, and intermingling various objects.
LIANG Jiaxin
b.1997, Guangdong. Jiaxin graduated Nanjing University of the Arts and is currently studying Photography at the Royal College of Art. Jiaxin focuses on the relationship between the subject and the object of the “viewing” behavior in contemporary visual culture. She uses photographic language to express her observations of and her attempts to narrate the real world and the virtual world. In her visual practices, the image will be reconstructed or refracted dynamically, statically, or audio-visually.
LIN Jiayu
I'm not an outstanding person, but I'm super into cats! Cats are born to be lazy, and they deliberately ignore all the people all the time - just like me! As the laziest person in our family trio, which includes me, my cat Xi xi and the other cat Da Tui ("thigh" in English), I live in a sweet but sometimes grumpy family. This dual character may be annoying at some point, but I'm okay with it. Because I can love and care about myself, Xi xi , Da Tui, and you.
LIU Kun
Liu majors in Digital Media Art at Communication University of China, Nanjing. Currently studies Philosophy at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. His artistic creation focuses on the exploration of his own emotions. LIU Yingzhen Graduated in MA Visual Communication, by Royal College of Art, 2016. Yingzhen Liu is passionate about making ‘images’; Her images are quiet, calm and visually delicate. Referencing the personal whilst integrating facts and figures from external sources. The materials used and ‘pattern’ created are meticulously selected to evoke layer upon layer of analysis and meaning. Nan Nan Nan Nan, based in Shenzhen, graduated from School of Visual Arts in New York (2016) and studied in Spain, Japan and UK. Her works centre around colours and the abstract presentation of “what you remembered is important”. The space and colours within are the artist’s sensory memories of a particular place and time. The absence of human figures emphasises her personal feelings reminiscent of a certain space, processing the formation of a memory. The simple blocks of colours serve to directly take the viewer back to the space in the artist’s mind when she recreated the moment, and return to the past time and space by taking in the second-hand feelings. The out-of-time embodiments enhance the jump of the memories. Can a touch of such relate the viewer to the instant moment back then? This is the question Nan aims to convey. Nivedita Rajendra
I’m Niv, a digital media specialist for leading tech companies, and visual artist/DJ working in Shenzhen’s alternative nightlife scene. In May 2019, I began hosting Mūla Workshops, a series of free educational events, motivated by my desire to create inclusive spaces for Shenzhen’s femme and LGBTQ youth to learn the basics of electronic arts. The workshops include hands-on sessions and open panel discussions with locally established DJs, visual artists, performance artists, producers, promoters and more.
QI Xie
Lives in Shenzhen. Graduated in Electrical Engineering and Marketing (B.Eng.), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Creative Media (MA), City University of Hong Kong. Co-curator of 2018 International Slow Art Day, Hong Kong Maritime Museum; Intern of Noguchi for Danh Vo: Counterpoint, and Five Artists: Sites Encountered, M+ Pavilion of West Kowloon, Hong Kong. Qi xie is taking her gap year for the moment, and she seeks to realize tons of her dreams in the future as many as possible. TAN Lijie Born in Shenzhen in 1991, Tan studied at the School of Intermedia Arts, the China Academy of Art from 2010 to 2017, and received a master's degree in art. In 2015, she studied at the Kingston University School of Art and Design in London as an exchange student. Currently living and working in Shenzhen. As a visual artist, Tan combines the reality of the image with the reflections of current events through her unique perspective, using animals, plants, dreams, symbols to think about everything, creating a moment of suspension through the image. She has long been concerned about the place that has been covered in fog all the year round in social life, thinking about the inseparable attachments in the high-speed development of positive society, creating a fascinating and fantastic visual experience and a strange story intertwined with dreams and reality, inviting people fall into the humidity of the rainforest. WANG Bing
Graduated in Culture Industries (M.A.) by the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies of Goldsmiths, University of London. Now lives and works in Shenzhen. Her projects focus on multi-level cultural and artistic scenes, and explore the interface between contemporary economy and culture from the fields of government policy, post-modern philosophy and the city itself, etc. Most of her past practices, with perspectives of culture and sociology, are based on field research.
WANG Ruonan
Graduated from School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Mainly engaged with videos and photography. Participated in “MFA Graduation Show”, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, Hong Kong (2018) and “HKFOREWORD2018”, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong (2018).
WANG Yuxi
Currently studies at Central China Normal University. In her half-year exchange experience in National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, she participated in the curatorial project of a memorial exhibition of the university, and presented her works in Mipai’s National Photography Summer Camp. Based on the original photography with flashlight, she tries to present a picture as energetic and detailed as it could be, with an illusion that looks real and unreal at the same time. With her flowing colours, she understands the land she stands on as a combination of “homeostasis” and “homeostatic”, which is exactly what she expects from herself when she creates. Weijing Graduated in MA Graphic Communication Design, by Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Working as an illustrator, Weijing often falls into the trap of self-doubt, because turning her passion towards illustration into a regular job brings her confusion about the effects she envisages. This time, the only thing she cares about is to truly enjoy drawing and have a good time.
WEI Yao
Born in Baiyin, Gansu, 1996, based in Beijing. Graduated as B.A. in School of Arts, Renmin University of China (2018), now Wei studies Freehand Figure Painting in Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 2019, his artworks were presented in various large-scale exhibitions in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Xi’an.
ZHANG Jinglun
Recently graduated from art school. Different ways of art expression from a variety of fields, plus the perspective from Jinglun's major, Architecture & Spatial Design, have given him a three-dimensional perspective to observe the world. Jinglun abandoned digital shooting and started to photograph with rolls of film about one year ago. Through the experience of loading the film, hearing the clicking sound of the shutter, processing the film, holding the negatives and finally projecting them on the screen, his inner world becomes calm and peaceful.