Tianyue Zhong: Between Earth and Tide

About

Opening on 21 February 2025 and on view until 27 March, this evocative exhibition features a series of 10 paintings, inviting viewers into an introspective journey, exploring resilience, memory, and the shifting nature of time. 

Zhong’s paintings emerge from a deeply personal process of understanding the interplay between physical and mental endurance. “Painting became a process of understanding perspectives on resilience,” the artist notes. “I place the figures in an upside-down world, vanishing into the spaces between humidity and heat. They appear as if lying down, foot by foot, one shadowing the other. The memory of the muscles became useless, and the mind softened, seizing illusions.”

The series begins with Intermission, where three figures are captured climbing the stairs of a Tibetan monastery. The work emphasises the absence of narrative, positioning Zhong as an invisible observer, silently watching strangers collide in space. The focus is not on memory but on recording sensory experiences that evolve over time. For Zhong, it captures the meditative stillness as, “a body hangs upside down, blood rushing to the brain, helpless, relinquishing control.” This moment of suspended vulnerability contrasts with the rush of sensory overload, where visual input fades and the senses of smell, sound, and touch dominate, heightening and fragmenting perception.

The same idea is explored in Cicada Song, the figures are found elongated and intertwining, descending from above, evoking a sense of time slowing under the weight of the oppressive summer heat. The title references the overwhelming hum of cicadas, which enveloped the artist as she walked down a tree-lined street, a sonic landscape that felt almost like an extension of the body itself. “Every second seemed to stretch on, with the cacophony of cicadas buzzing together,” the artist recalls. “It was as if everything around me accelerated, yet time also seemed to stand still.”

Zhong’s process involves an intuitive mix of materials, layering oil paints, pencil, and Gambol to create fluid, ever-shifting compositions. This act of painting is an ongoing dialogue between the present and the past, where each gesture and mark on the canvas becomes an embodiment of fleeting emotional sensory experiences.