Qian Qian, In A Greenhouse Somewhere / 某处的日光棚, 2024. 56 x 76cm, Mixed media on archival board

Lychee One is delighted to present ‘Portals to The Past’, the first solo exhibition in our space by Chinese- born artist Qian Qian. This exhibition advances Qian’s artistic explorations over the past five years, intertwining the realms of technology with mythology, the material with the spiritual, and the tangible with the transcendent. In addition to her latest watercolours on paper, the exhibition also features her first attempt at presenting oil paintings on canvas, alongside a sculptural installation piece titled Form and Emptiness.

For Qian, art acts as a conduit for her creative world-building, probing the layers veiled beneath the exterior of phenomena. Her watercolours, celebrated for their delicate complexity, not only capture abstract sensations of luminous colours and swirls but also discern the nuanced bodily imageries. Expanding on last year’s dual solo at the gallery, which delved into quantum consciousness and meditative introspection, the latest watercolour works (highlighted by Finitude Unchained In Late Spring Blossoms and Immortal Beloved) seize ephemeral moments of spiritual communion between the human and non-human protagonists, or even the presence of consciousness unbound by the physical, manifesting directly within space and time (In a Greenhouse Somewhere).

The visual core of these pieces draws from symbols endemic to the microcosms of electromagnetism and molecular biology, akin to micro-landscapes probing the harmony and chaos within this internal universe. Qian’s watercolour works summon the traditions of homo signorum medical illustrations, including the Inner Canon Diagrams, the Ashmole Manuscript, and even the whimsical fruit portraits by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. In contrast, her brand new oil paintings, such as the ‘Altar’ series seen in the show, resonate with the medieval concept of memento mori, a cornerstone in the tradition of still life.

Another oil painting series, ‘Portraits’, adapts techniques previously explored in her watercolor works that vividly capture the essence of the microcosmic world, now used to depict human figures as negative spaces, thus challenging the Western tradition of portrait painting.

Additionally, a sculptural installation piece titled Form and Emptiness brings to the forefront Qian’s recurring fascination with exoskeletal imagery, hinting at the enigmas inherent in classical still lifes – the deceptive nature of earthly existence and the ephemeral quality of material possessions.

In essence, ‘Portals to The Past’ experiments with moments of transformed states of mind. In the artist’s own words, each painting functions as a portal, inviting viewers who resonate with the painterly visions to engage in spiritual metamorphoses. Through each portal provided by the paintings, we venture into the liminal zone of our consciousness, touching base with our subconscious, or even the sentience of non- human entities. Moreover, these works reflect the artist’s ongoing pursuit of deconstructing and reconstructing our sense of time and space across diverse epistemologies, from the annals of Western science to Asian and other non-Western philosophies.

Text by Zian Chen

Opening Hours

Thursday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm

Location:

Unit 1, The Gransden,
39 Gransden Avenue,
London E8 3QA

Text and pictures, copyright saatchi yates and the artist