· Solo Exhibition ·New Community – Exhibition of Chinese Young Artists' Status QuoOrganizer:
Organizing Committee of Qingdao International Art Annual Exhibition
Co-organizers:
Dechang Arte-V Exit Art Museum
Qingdao Press Painting and Calligraphy Academy
Zanyi Cultural Institution
Curator:
LIN Zhu
Exhibition Director:
WANG Fang
Exhibition Coordinators:
ZHAO Xinyu
FU Nan
Artists:
CHEN Chao / HAN Xiaojiao / HONG Hongjie / HUANG Chao / LI Hongjing / LI Zhao / LIN Yingyi / LIU Bin / LIU Shichao / Max Meng / SHAO Yiqin / SONG Yiyi / YANG Jie / YANG Yuanshen / Aurora Yu / ZHANG Qi / ZHANG Suhao / ZHAO Taotao / ZHOU Mengyao
Duration:
November 01, 2025 – December 31, 2025
Opening Reception:
2:00 PM, November 01, 2025
Venue:
2nd Floor Exhibition Hall, V Exit Art Museum
No.122-1 Zhuzhou Road, Laoshan District, Qingdao
· Preface ·
New Community – A Mode of Connection
By Lin Zhu
From a human perspective, our judgments of the world—its order and the shifts of the times—are shaped by human actions. In every era of radical change, the most vibrant, dynamic and creative group has always been the young and middle-aged generation. Today, it is undeniable that the post-80s, post-90s and even post-00s generations have become the backbone driving social progress. Their perceptions of and responses to the world largely mirror the true face of this era.
Electronic technology is reshaping our lives with unprecedented vitality. Yet in an age of highly advanced information and omnipresent algorithmic feeds, the care and bonds between people rooted in physical presence and genuine emotion seem to have lost their significance. Individuals are increasingly accustomed to self-constructed cognitive cocoons. Even our understanding of the people closest to us no longer relies on verbal communication; instead, we "know" one another through social media moments and platforms, turning us into each other’s "most familiar strangers". This is the reality we all live with. The question is: Is this "reality" still true to the essence of life? If we delve into the inner self of each individual, is there a deeper, more authentic truth to be found?
Art, as a creative practice rooted in emotion and intellect, is defined by its constant questioning, its attempt to transcend superficial appearances and touch the inner truth of human beings. Perhaps art is precisely the path to answering this confusion—and this is what gives meaning to the exhibition New Community – Exhibition of Chinese Young Artists' Status Quo.
The New Community exhibition brings together twenty young artists from twenty provinces, municipalities and regions across China. They had no prior connection whatsoever; they gather here solely for their shared passion for art, selected through an online open call. This mode of connection, built on online communities, constitutes a new form of collective existence in itself. Precisely this sense of unfamiliarity and distance serves to highlight the independence and objective authenticity in each artist’s creation. Together, their works piece together a new trend and the overall landscape of China’s emerging art scene at the exhibition venue—a landscape that is diverse, authentic, and brimming with the passion of challenge and exploration. We hope this exhibition is more than just a visual convergence; it is a dialogue about truth, connection and self-transcendence.
(Lin Zhu: Founder of Dechang Arte Culture Institution, Curator of V Exit Art Museum, Co-founder and Chief Curator of the Qingdao International Art Annual Exhibition)
· Biographies and Works of the Participating Artists ·
Chen Chao
Pen name: Two Pieces of Watermelon，He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the China Academy of Art and currently lives and works in Hangzhou. His works are collected by the Zhejiang Art Museum, the China Academy of Art, Shanghai Hongmiao Art Space, as well as private collectors.
Sculpture: Attempting to Break Free from the Greasy Daydream No.16
20cm × 27cm × 25cm
Employing a representational approach, this work explores the connection between personal growth and society, as well as the relationship between the individual and time and space. It deconstructs and reconstructs the structural relationships of memory, and conducts experimental memory collage, in an attempt to open a window to glimpse the bond between the authentic self and the times. It may also be an image collage of a specific group of people.
Han Xiaojiao
As a native free creator from Qingdao, I explore the world with paintbrushes as my medium, emphasizing diverse expressions. My creations are not confined to a single theme; they embrace the philosophical reflection of "the shared origin of life and death" as well as artistic collisions of mixed materials. I have always believed that art is the language of the soul—it can connect tradition with the present, and turn abstract emotions and philosophical thoughts into something tangible and perceptible.
Snake and Flower
60×80cm, Acrylic and Mixed Media
A snake coils around a slender flowering branch, symbolizing that those seemingly unbearable burdens in life can all blossom amid hardships.
Hong Hongjie
Independent art researcher and contemporary artist, currently a postgraduate student in the Experimental Art Department of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts. He has long focused on the contemporary expressions of installation art, media ecology and the mechanism of spectatorship. His works and research have been selected for numerous art exhibitions and academic forums, and he excels at conducting critical analyses of the mechanisms of artistic media from the perspectives of philosophy, aesthetics and systematic thinking.
Experimental Paintings from the Random Generative Series
53×45.5cm, 2025
Generation is regarded as an emergence from disorder, casting aside established structures and schematic logic. The contingency of materials and instantaneous perceptions together construct a non-linear and decentered visual production mechanism. In the constant process of generation and dissolution, the work presents an "order beyond order".
Huang Chao
Holder of a Master of Fine Arts degree and a Master of Buddhist Art degree, Associate Professor, and Director of Sanya Shangxia Art Museum. In 2019, his work Dancing Together was awarded the Gold Award at the Art Exhibition for Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China – "Striving Forward with the Republic" (the 6th Hainan Provincial Art Exhibition).
Dancing Together
Mixed Media on Paper with Mineral Pigments, 180×200cm, 2019
Li Hongjing
Born in Yangquan, Shanxi Province, she studied at the Affiliated High School of the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing and graduated from the Department of Fine Arts of Beijing Union University, majoring in Illustration. She currently lives and works in Shanxi Province and is a contracted NFT artist of Yuanqi Xingkong.
Winter Dream
Oil on Canvas, 38×28cm
For me, who has painted since childhood, painting—regardless of the method or medium—is an expression of emotion, perception, color and connection.
Li Zhao
Born in Hefei, Anhui, he is a paper carving artist and a creative art teacher. He graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Chaohu University and founded the Empty Island Paper Carving Studio, engaging in creative art teaching and paper carving creation.
Xiang
43×34×48cm, Wool Paper, Newspaper
Everyone has an appearance, and the world mostly judges and knows others by their superficial looks. What is the truth behind the appearances presented under the ideologies of different social classes? Are there countless possibilities that people choose to ignore, instead clinging to fixed standards? This work aims to express what constitutes the essence beneath the superficial appearance. Even those deemed obscure by worldly standards possess immense and unknown potential. Fragile paper can also take on extraordinary forms—an alternative appearance. It reborns with new vitality within the framework of traditional concepts.
Lin Yingyi
Born in Guangzhou, Guangdong in 2002, she began creating illustrations under the pen name Lam in 2020 and founded her personal brand LamLab Lin's Laboratory in 2021, through which she expresses her inner abstract worldview and shares her own color kingdom.
Eye of the Sun 2025
Liu Bin
Born in Guangzhou, Guangdong in 1981, he graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. He is a member of the China Artists Association, a member of the China Oil Painting Society, a member of the Guangdong Artists Association, and an appointed artist of the Foshan Academy of Art Creation for the third term.
Taming the Monkey Under the Five-Layered Shirt
29×37cm, Watercolor on Paper, 2025
Liu Shichao
He lives and works in Qingdao and graduated from the School of Art and Design, Lanzhou Jiaotong University.
Return to Belgrade
Acrylic on Lime and Polymer Emulsion Blended Fabric
100×100cm, 2025
This painting delves into numerous complex ethnic issues in Slavic culture through a unique visual language and symbolic techniques. Whether through color and composition, or symbol and metaphor, it draws viewers into a fraught and thought-provoking national history. I hope it not only strikes the eye visually, but also inspires viewers to rediscover and re-examine this culturally rich region steeped in stories through an understanding of its creative context.
Meng Yin
University lecturer, art museum director and designer. He excels at applying the aesthetic language of visual symbols to the expression of objects and events. The personal artistic inclinations reflected in his works, interwoven with rich texture, exhibit intense tension, exploring the concepts of temporality (the scale of time), transformation (the potential for new life amid decline), and traces of existence (the sense of human intervention).
Himalaya X
Digital Modeling, 2024
The Himalaya X series weaves a narrative through the gradation of materials and forms, burying the codes of civilizational evolution within the negative spaces of black dark matter. Beneath the cold veneer of its seemingly mechanical vessels, the blood of Eastern aesthetics still flows.
Shao Yiqin
Born in 1999, currently living in Shanghai, and pursuing a postgraduate degree in Oil Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University.
Prisoned Fruit
Oil on Canvas, 80×60cm, 2025
The order and high-density life in Shanghai bring the theme of "control/being controlled" to the forefront (a key element in my current works): safety pins, forks, glass and goldfish, confined fruits and feet—all serve as metaphors for boundaries, restraint and being under gaze. This has sparked my creative momentum and shifted my thinking from narrative to "allegorical still life", as I seek an emotional outlet within restraint.
Song Yiyi
Song Yiyi is an artist who primarily works with ceramic media and currently lives in London. Her artistic practice stems from a long-standing focus on the body, memory and familial relationships. Her works are mostly hand-shaped from clay, and by integrating cracks, glaze runs and decorative language, she explores the emotional and perceptual experiences embodied in everyday objects.
Vessels in Migration · Fragment No.1–No.2
(2025, Ceramic, Glaze-fired)
This series expresses the instability and restoration inherent in the migratory process through fractures, folds and suture marks. The exposed clay surfaces bear the traces of touch and time, while the sense of splicing symbolizes the reconfiguration of identity and memory in flux. Here, the vessel is no longer a complete and closed form, but a social metaphor that is constantly broken and reconstructed, reflecting how the individual seeks a sense of belonging in the gaps between different environments during migration.
Yang Jie
Yang Jie's artistic journey began with a serendipitous creative experience. While buying groceries at a market, a sudden connection to his own twenty-pound weight loss inspired an experimental work that integrates photography, data, poetry, digital collage and video. He believes that life, even in its most ordinary form, holds an inherent artistic quality, and through this belief, he explores the truths hidden beneath everyday phenomena.
One Day
Experimental Animation (1 min 27 sec) / Variable Dimensions / 2021
I replaced the elements in the game Melon Merge with the ten most commonly used mobile apps in daily life, then ranked them by the hours spent on each, and created the work in the form of animation. Centering on personal experience and against the backdrop of the era of platform big data, this piece adopts the "game" itself as a medium to deliver a playful, ironic commentary on such societal phenomena as the gamification of daily life and the age of amusement to death. When these mundane everyday experiences are presented through a gaming lens, they take on an absurd and bizarre quality that compels the audience to rethink a core question: Who is playing the game, and who is being played?
Yang Yuanshen
Born in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province on October 24, 1996. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the Animation Department of Zhejiang University of Media and Communications, and his postgraduate degree in the Animation Research Field from Tokyo Polytechnic University in 2024. He is a young member of the International Animated Film Association.
Static Frames from the Animated Work 0:00 A.M.
This animated work is based on my experience working at a major tech company while I was still in university. Back then, I was constantly rushing between campus and the office. Such exhaustion was quite hard to bear for someone who had just stepped into society. But the core concept I aim to explore in this piece is time—specifically, the discrepancy between subjective time and objective time. This disparity exists even when we are fully awake: for instance, a ten-minute break after class can feel incredibly fleeting at times, and endlessly long at others. And this contrast becomes even more pronounced when we are fatigued. That is why I titled the work 0:00 A.M., a concept that embodies this sense of temporal disorientation.
Yu Yuqing
Native to Shaanxi, she is a post-90s freelance artist, IP designer and 3D designer. She studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Torino in Italy and currently lives and works in Beijing.
A Little Busy
Acrylic, 80cm×100cm×3cm, 2025
When creating A Little Busy, I poured all the fluttering whims and fancies in my mind onto the canvas in one go. The little monster at the heart of the painting is a microcosm of myself—its eyes are stuffed with all sorts of bizarre ideas, and its head and surroundings are crammed to the brim with inspiration. Those colorful little creatures and twisted lines are the creative thoughts popping up endlessly in my mind; they are bustling yet unruly, just like one’s mind working in a frantic "frenzy". With this intricate yet lively composition, I aim to capture that state of being "a little busy but incredibly fun" when one’s mind is taken over by weird and wonderful ideas. I also hope that anyone who sees this painting will be reminded of the fantastic thoughts leaping about in their own heads, and not let them be crowded out by the "busyness" of life. After all, this messy, chaotic universe of inspiration is what truly captivates us the most.
Zhang Qi
Associate Professor, Arts and Crafts Master, and Visiting Scholar at the China National Academy of Arts. She obtained her Master’s degree from the Ceramic Art Department of Shandong University of the Arts in 2014, and currently serves at the School of Modern Design, Haidu College of Qingdao Agricultural University. She has published more than 20 academic papers and presided over 3 provincial-level research projects. Her ceramic artworks have been exhibited in numerous domestic and international exhibitions and won several awards; some of her works are collected by private collectors, art museums and museums.
Withered Wood Blossoms in Spring Series 2, 35×12×8CM, Ceramic & Porcelain, December 2024
The technique of "one-time firing of porcelain petals bonded to ceramic slabs" is an extremely challenging artistic experiment. Porcelain and ceramic inherently differ in their firing temperatures and shrinkage rates, and one-time firing demands precise control over the kiln temperature curve to prevent petal detachment or slab cracking caused by asynchronous expansion and contraction of the two materials. This technique not only tests the mastery of technical skills, but also embodies an ultimate experimental spirit toward material properties—it breaks the traditional firing boundaries between ceramic and porcelain, allowing the two materials to achieve "symbiosis" in the same time and space.
Zhang Suhao
Zhang Suhao (b.2003), born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, is a musician and director. As a junior, he directed and shot a number of short films that were shortlisted for TINFF (Canada Screen Certified). He independently wrote, directed, filmed and edited Quality Life, which was shortlisted for the FIRST PIONEER Unit at the 19th FIRST Young Film Festival. His works mostly take video and installation as media to explore the dynamic connections between the body, identity and social fields. He adheres to the principle of vision over text and rejects interpretation and predefined meaning, aiming to create video works that can broaden the perception of life.
Static Frames from Tico Tico Life: Quality Living
A speculative experimental short film that reconstructs time and space through moving images: Taking the raw textures of mobile phone and DV footage as its medium, it deconstructs the hometown into a labyrinth of memories where reality and illusion intertwine. In my imagination, I return to this land that is both familiar and strange—everything here, the crowds, the smoke, the ships, seems forever frozen yet endlessly adrift. Is this my hometown? I have not caught the scent of my childhood in a long time... Perhaps it has long since solidified. Embracing a minimalist aesthetic, this film challenges visual hegemony and employs lo-fi filming techniques to highlight the predicament of existence, exploring the archaeological value of memory at the boundary between reality and illusion. When we gaze at these images of hometowns altered by algorithms, we may rediscover a profound truth: true nostalgia does not lie in the physical homeland, but in the spiritual origin where humanity resists oblivion.
Zhao Taotao
Born in Linyi, Shandong Province in 1990, she graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and currently works and lives in Qingdao.。
Invitation to Contemplation
150×200cm
Mixed Media, 2024
In my works, women have always been the absolute protagonists, yet in this piece, I have let a man’s face fill half the canvas for the first time, his features etched with the traces of time. The essence within the camellia at the center exists in a gender-neutral state like the Buddha, yet the radiance it emanates is filled with aggressiveness. The pink-hued female figure in the painting has no frontal face, and yet she is more ethereal and fluid than ever before—she extends an invitation to contemplation to the world.
Zhou Mengyao
Born in Zibo, Shandong in 1996, she currently resides in Qingdao. She obtained her master’s degree in Video Art - New Media Production from Chung-Ang University in South Korea. Since 2024, she has been pursuing her doctoral degree at Chung-Ang University and working at the DATA+ Art Lab in South Korea. Her main research focuses on interactive art, digital media art and related fields.
Choi Ho-jung (최호정)
Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1995, he obtained his master’s degree in Imaging Engineering - Video Art from the Graduate School of Advanced Imaging Science, Multimedia and Film at Chung-Ang University, South Korea. His main research focuses on interactive art, installation art and sculpture.
Second River, Static ScreenshotsVideo, Variable Dimensions, 2025
Different words pile up on the floors and walls, forming a river of data. This river is made up of algorithm-generated data fragments—meaningless words repeat, accumulate and settle in an emotionless form, thus becoming a river. This emotionless river divides humanity’s past and present, and distinguishes between real humans and artificial intelligence.
· Exhibition Venue ·
