The Blooming Dartemoor
Aimilios Metaxas
David Iain Brown
Dien Berziga
Hannah Lim
Henry Burns
Huang Junwei
Ioana Baltan
Jakob Rowlinson
Jia Chenlan
Liu Yichao
Li Yuanhao
Ming Zhang
Naixin & Peggy Ran Yuxiao
Xu Jiawei
You Xu
Yingming Chen
Lian Museum
28 March 2025
-
12 May 2025
EXHIBITION DETAILS
ARTIST
Aimilios Metaxas | David Iain Brown | Dien Berziga | Hannah Lim | Henry Burns | Huang Junwei | Ioana Baltan | Jakob Rowlinson | Jia Chenlan | Liu Yichao | Li Yuanhao | Ming Zhang | Naixin & Peggy | Ran Yuyao | Xu Jiawei | Xu You | Yingming Chen
CURATOR
Ziyan Xu
PRODUCER
Jianguang Guo
Shufan Shen
ORGANIZER
XIMA GALLERY
CO-ORGANIZER
Hangzhou Vanke
DIRECTION
Management Committee of Qianjiang Century City, Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou
Bureau of Culture and Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports, Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou, China
Duration
2025.3.28 - 2025.5.12
Opening
2025.3.28 14:30
ADDRESS
B113 LIAN • GALLERY, Building 6, No. 476, Fengbei Road, Yingfeng Street, Qianjiang Century City, Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province
The Blooming Dartemoor
Lian Gallery is delighted to present The Blooming Dartmoor, a group exhibition featuring 18 artists from various countries. These artists bring with them vibrant life experiences and diverse cultural backgrounds, transcending boundaries of race, identity, age, and gender. Through easel paintings, installations, and sculptures, they explore our unique connection with the world on the other side.
The Meaning of The Other Shore in Chinese, 彼岸 refers to the land across the water, symbolizing a desired realm. Derived from the Buddhist Sanskrit term Paramita, it contrasts with this shore—a world filled with confusion and the burdens of reality. Instead, the other shore represents enlightenment, a harmonious and beautiful world often seen as the remedy sought by sorrowful souls. Through the lens of art, it is a realm of wonder, infused with the beauty of humanity’s communion with nature.
Legend has it that in the forests of Dartmoor, ghostly hounds roam at night, huge in the misty bogs and bare hills; that pointy-eared sprites live in caves, round stone circles, and love mischief; Oaks before the sun rises,winding and coiling, sprouting new blue-green leaves, and wilting in the night; rocky knolls floating up and down like waves in the sea; cold alpine waterfalls flowing with glowing springs ...
Dartmoor is the remedy that exists in these artistic narratives; the artists are searching for the most flourishing spirits and demons within, constructing memories of what is happening, and they are consciously evoking the viewer's self-referential, connected thinking with the world on the other side.
- Ziyan Xu / Curator
Artist intro
Aimilios Metaxas
Aimilios Metaxas. Born in Athens, Greece in 1999, started studying art academically during his high school years where he was mentored by
a visual development artist from Pixar and Walt Disney animation studios. He would later on go to win a scholarship to study at NABA in Milan graduating in 2020, earning a Bachelor's degree in Painting and
Visual Arts and in 2023, Aimilios completed his Master's degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London, where he is currently based.
In his current practice he wish to draw our attention towards the dangers aligned with the restrained part of ourselves which causes us to lose our own self and help us understand why it is vital to pay
attention to the creative child inside every individual for the inner
child is not a retrogression towards a sophomoric state of life but a
progression towards wholeness.
Heavily influenced by mythology and the art of animation he embark on a journey towards the exploration of his heritage and to challenge the viewers notion of the world through the creature in the works, asking them what the monsters depicted actually are, are they something alien to us we have to fear or rather an extension of who we are, serving as the means for our own personal growth and understanding.
Through the skilful use of intricate repetitive details, fluid lines
combined with striking imagery of his imagination he is able to attain
the intensification of the affective “impact” of my work and create an
impression of “wholeness” that challenges todays culture’s fragmentary sensations and promiscuous superficiality drawing our attentions towards the traditional valued qualities of depth, meaning, originality and authenticity.
David Iain Brown
David Iain Brown. b.1991. David Iain Brown is a Glasgow-based contemporary artist with a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice and a Master’s in Fine Art from Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen. He lives and works in Glasgow now.
Originally a printmaker, Brown transitioned into painting, bringing a precise and process-driven approach to his work. His practice is rooted in transformation, where studio remnants—torn rags, discarded works, and repurposed textiles—are reassembled into bold, abstract compositions.
Brown’s work explores deconstruction and reconstruction, pushing the limits of materiality to create layered pieces that are both meditative and dynamic, inviting viewers to uncover the intricate complexities of contemporary abstraction.
Dien Berziga
Dien Berziga, b. 2001. Dien Berziga is an artist living and working in London. Berziga received his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London in 2023.
His multidisciplinary practice includes painting, digital collage, 3D printing, and the use of found materials. Berziga's work explores themes of individuality and value within urban landscapes, blending traditional techniques with contemporary technology.
His paintings evoke childlike wonder, while the carefully crafted frames add a refined aesthetic. This contrast reflects a broader tension in his work between spontaneity and control, as well as experimentation and precision.
Hannah Lim
Hannah Lim. b.1998, Born in 1998, Hannah is a London based artist working between sculpture, installation and drawing.She received her BA in sculpture from the University of Edinburgh and her MFA from The University of Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art.
Hannah’s practice has been a way for her to explore parts of her cultural identity. As a woman of mixed Chinese-Singaporean and British heritage, her work explores the relationship between these cultures, looking to how this has been reflected historically through furniture design, objects and architecture.
She became intrigued by the 18th-century design trend, Chinoiserie. A trend through which elements of Chinese design and culture were recreated and imitated in relation to European aesthetics and tastes. Both ornamental and functional designs are blended together in her larger and smaller scale works.
Her own snuff bottle-like works are far larger than the traditional designs and are often anthropomorphised with arms, legs and eyes. They also don’t contain snuff. They are however very intricate and ornate, similar to real snuff bottles. Initially her own snuff bottles were designed in a way to highlight certain personal aspects of her heritage, overtime they’ve come to reflect different points in my research. Each of her own snuff bottles also has a hanging charm hidden within its lid, this extra detail is only revealed once the snuff bottle is opened up. This hidden inner detail references the tiny spoon attached to the lid of traditional snuff bottles. Whilst the spoon in traditional snuff bottles serves a functional purpose, the hanging charm within her own snuff bottles is purely ornamental and symbolic.
Ioana Baltan
Ioana Baltan. Born in 1993, Baltan lives and works in London. She attended The National University of Arts, Bucharest, where she obtained a BA degree in painting in 2015. The same year, Baltan obtained the Teaching Training Department's BA degree issued by the same institution. She continued her studies at The Brera Fine Arts Academy Milan with a scholarship and got an MA Degree in Strategies of Creation in Painting released by the National University of Arts Bucharest.
Baltan's paintings reveal her strong preoccupation with contemporary approaches to the female figure. Her large scale compositions are thought as a body of visual research on portraying feminine archetypes with a strong focus on how these subjects were depicted overtime as angelic beauty icons, grotesque monsters or recently as animated plastic simulacra. Ioana's urban goddesses are surrounded by fantastic landscapes decorated with cosmic elements, wild fauna all of them shrouded with artificial lights.
Lim Ka Ye
Lim Ka Ye. Born in Hong Kong in 1999, obtained a Bachelor's degree in Chinese
Painting from China Academy of Art in 2021, followed by a Master's degree from the Research Studio in Figure Painting at the same institution in 2024 and now working and living mainly in Hong Kong and Hangzhou.
Lim’s aim is to find the materiality in the symbolic world through collecting and recombination, using ink and wash as the materials, creating on the Chinese rice paper wet-mounted on the board.
Junwei Huang
Junwei Huang. Born in Fujian in 1989 and graduated from
Sichuan Fine Arts University. Junwei’s creation are all on the silk, a material with semi-transparent properties, combined with other materials such as canvas and acrylic. By juxtaposing two different materials and different pictorial spaces, the classic elements and symbols of Chinese painting are merged with Western modern visual art experiences.
Through changes in composition, form, color, and medium, a multi-layered perspective effect is depicted on the canvas, creating a multi-layered impression of time and space. Different landscapes are created in different forms of existence in different time and space, creating a long-term psychological feeling of alienation between oneself, others, society, and nature, in which people live in the present.
Yuanhao Li
Yuanhao Li. b.2000. Born in Xi'an, China, Li Yuanhao earned a Bachelor's degree in Journalism (Media Experimental Class) from Nanjing University in 2022. He then pursued a Master's degree in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, graduating in 2023. Following this, he completed a Master's degree in Photography at the Royal College of Art in 2024. Currently based in Shanghai, Li Yuanhao continues to explore the fields of photography.
Ether is an ongoing photographic documentary project starting in the summer of 2023. Fireworks, birds, snow, sunsets, the sea, in the natural and spontaneous journey I try to sense my connection to the present moment through subtle moments and light. The soft, dreamy and lonely landscapes of the work reflect the sensitivity of the specfic life phase. And the grief that cannot be ignored arises from temporality, as those moments and moods invitably slip away - a nomad that eventually ends.
These photos reflect a floating status. No city attracts me enough to settle down, no community demands long-term attention, no symbol is worth tattooing on skin, no intimacy holds me back. When not yet entangled or bound on a foothold, we once had such acute and subtle observations, which is a sentimental stage when perceiving everything and oneself as ether.
Jakob Rowlinson
Jakob Rowlinson. Born 1990, Jakob lives and works in London, UK. He studied his BA at Ruskin School of Art, before undertaking and MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London.
Rowlinson uses improvisation to help build leather masks, intentionally avoiding perfection and leaning on our innate tendency for pareidolia - that oddly empathic tendency to perceive recognisable forms (especially human faces) in otherwise inanimate objects or inane patterns. For Rowlinson, identity, community and self-comprehension can be found in pre-existing archives, those folkloric, cultural and personal pasts that lie waiting to be re-evaluated and reimagined, from which to co-opt a colourful cast of characters for his mediaeval masquerade melodrama of queer (dis)identification. Seeking prior precedents in order to retain agency over an increasingly precarious present, and true to an occultist tradition of religious appropriation for a secular satirisation, Rowlinson re-contextualises myths and legends for a 21st-century reading.
With the exactitude of a seasoned butcher preparing a carcass into its most saleable cuts of meat, Jakob Rowlinson fillets, flays and spatchcocks his selection of reclaimed shoes, carefully unstitched them to expose their pattern-cut leather pieces. Unable and uninterested in disguising their original intention he harvests the hides, embracing the already-established anthropomorphic mimetism of a shoe's tongue or incorporating original ornate broguing into his own cobbled constructions.
Ming Zhang
Ming Zhang. Born in 1990, Ming‘s work mainly focus on fashion design, costume design, soft sculpture, installation, and
performance art. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art Practice at the esteemed Royal College of Art, Ming is an alumnus of the prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and the University of the Arts in London.
His work all begin with emotion – layers of thoughtfully examined and poignantly lived emotion that are painted onto canvas and sewn into fabric. Emotions give meaning to life and breathe life into the art of Mingzhang Sun. Ming's work resonates with grace and power, inviting us to experience the world through the spectrum of intensely felt emotions.
Ming's artistic style is a fusion of figurative expressionism and neo-romanticism, infused with elements of Chinese landscape painting and the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy. His artworks exude refined elegance and sensuality. Through the use of figural distortion and elongated forms, Ming evokes themes of sexuality and heartbreak, while also capturing the mood of palpable solitude, unwavering hope, and reverence. Symbolism plays a significant role in his artworks, often alluding to Chinese lore and mythology. Ming embraces a diverse range of materials in his artistic practice, pushing the boundaries of different mediums to explore unseen connections and hidden meanings. His recurring themes revolve around the interconnectedness of humanity, the relationship between fear and perception, and the ongoing interplay between the choices we make and the choices we let slip away.
Yuxiao Ran
Yuxiao Ran. Born in 1996 in Chengdu, China. Yuxiao earned his BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, US in 2020, and obtained his MA in painting at Royal College of Art in London, UK in 2023. He now lives and works in London, UK.
Ran’s paintings are a record, or a re-creation of his present experience. Ran primarily uses representational language to arrange images and motifs from different cultural spaces and times on the canvas. He aims to challenge and subvert our habitual reading of images and symbols. This "collage-like" visual arrangement never relies on predetermined compositions, and seeks to reenact the chaotic realism of contemporary socio-cultural situations. The process of Ran’s creation is a series of calculated, idiosyncratic, and playful engagement with existing pictorial languages in a context of multiculturalism.
You Xu
You Xu. Born in Shanghai in 1985 and graduated from the Department of Advertising Design at Shanghai University. In 2016, she went to Japan to further her studies in Sogetsu School installation art and stage performing arts, and introduced the forms of installation and modern dance performances to China, becoming an innovative representative in this field. In 2024, she was named one of Vanke's "Top 100 Collaborative Artists", creating a series of large-scale installations of non-heritage bamboo weaving.
She believes that the shaping curves of plants are highly similar to the style of modern dance. Although they seemingly belong to different artistic domains, one being static and the other dynamic, they share similar means of expression. Gradually, Xu You has explored an artistic style of her own from plant art shaping and modern dance performances. In many of her works, she uses organic materials to imitate neural networks, visualizing the flow of human thoughts, emotions, and feelings, and seeking connections among countless free states.
In addition to installation art, Xu You is also actively promoting the integration of install newation and dance performance forms. By combining installation art with healing, she has developed her own art therapy system, exploring the creative possibilities of different media and artistic domains.
Yichao Liu
Yichao Liu. Born in Huizhou, Guangdong in 1990. Yichang studied his BA in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2013, and the MA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2020. Currently working and living in Shenzhen, China.
"Light is the primary phenomenon of the world, revealing its spirit and vivid soul through color."
"A poetic dwelling under sunlight transforms from imagery into tranquility within the viewer's heart, radiating positive energy."
In his creative process, he often contemplate the possibilities of color. By meticulously adjusting the temperature, brightness, and purity of hues in his paintings, he craft luminous visual effects that evoke warmth.
While his subjects vary freely to allow expansive exploration, light remains the central thread. He deconstruct randomly captured or collected images into foundational compositions, blurring the shapes of depicted objects and enriching their colors to defamiliarize the familiar.
Deliberately stepping away from traditional depiction or direct replication of scenery, He explore the possibilities of painting through the interplay of abstraction and reality.
In the restless reality of modern life, beauty and serenity are especially precious. His work contemplates the relationship between humanity and nature in contemporary existence—a subtle dynamic I encapsulate as tranquility and poetry. Beyond the exploration of painterly techniques, He strive to share this rare poetic quality by depicting a sense of ambiguity between the real and the imagined.
His pieces portray personal discoveries, emotions, and states of being, documenting fragments of daily life. They do not mirror reality directly but are imbued with traces of real-life experiences, inviting viewers to interpret their own narratives.
Chenlan Jia
Chenlan Jia. Born in 1989, Chenlan graduated with a master's degree in 2013 and completed studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Chinese National Academy of Arts in 2012 and 2020 respectively.
Her paintings are permeated with a cold and elegant Eastern aesthetic, dreamlike and illusory. She attempts to enter a realm of beauty untouched by others, a cool and ethereal artistic realm. Here, she creates an endless misty cloud, along with the floating crystal mountains, dancing phoenixes and peacocks, glittering pavilions, and white jade terraces, painting a fairyland beyond the mundane. She is intoxicated by the beauty and sense of loss she experiences when seeing the moon at night, a feeling that conveys an unexpected beauty and is a recurring theme in her creations. While Western myths have become popular worldwide, Eastern fairylands are now both strange and familiar to us.
Yingming Chen
Yingming Chen. Born in 1997, Yingming Chen is a London-based artist from Guangdong, China. he completed a BA in Fine Arts at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2020 and later completed a two-year postgraduate course in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art.
His work explores the relationship between power and writing, aiming to reflect and question the decisions we make within our social environment and atmosphere. By utilising various materials and techniques, as well as objects and images that mirror contemporary society, he strives to inspire viewers to reflect on their daily lives and surroundings.
Henry Burns
Henry Burns. Born in 1993, Henry is currently enrolled on the MFA Sculpture programme at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He previously graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Chelsea School of Art.
Burns creates sculptures, collages and installations using second-hand materials and objects. His works evolve through an improvisational approach that responds to the materials at hand and the spaces they inhabit. This process mirrors the resourceful, ad hoc construction methods seen in spaces such as allotments, where scavenged materials come together in practical but unexpected ways. Burns' practice is iterative; installations are dismantled and rearticulated, with materials continually being recycled into new configurations. This cyclical process reflects his interest in temporary infrastructure used to stage events and facilitate construction.
Naixin Shi
Peggy Yu
Naixin Shi. b.1995 & Peggy Yu. b. 1997. Naixin and Peggy are female designers duo based in London. With a background deeply rooted to sea and fishing culture, their practice aims to link industrial waste, marine culture and digital manufacturing.
Peggy Yu is a multimedia artist and architect in London, UK. Her work examines alienated nature—the fragmented, reconstructed landscapes of the post-anthropocene, shaped by mass production, digital fabrication, and ecological decay. Through site specific art, robotic arm performance and film to tell story.
Her works have been exhibited at platforms such as NOWNESS Asia, the Venice Biennale, Milan Design Week, and the Toronto Arts Festival and so on.
Naixin Shi is a London-based reuse artist and interior designer known for transforming abandoned spaces and discarded materials into meaningful artistic expressions. With a background in design from the Royal College of Art, her work explores sustainability, craftsmanship, and material innovation.
She has exhibited at major events such as London Craft Week, Milan Design Week, and the London Design Festival, earning numerous accolades, including the IDA Award and the Muse Design Award.
