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Young artists try to reclaim that lost sense of presence in the digital era
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BLUERIDER ART’s latest exhibition on the Bund spotlights a new generation of Chinese artists born after 1985.
Titled “The Aura River — We Will Eventually Reach the Sea,” the show features 27 emerging artists selected from more than 700 submissions and more than 2,800 art pieces. Their works, ranging from painting and sculpture to installation and ink, reflect a diversity of personal narratives, visual languages and cultural references.
The exhibition draws on the philosophical concept of “aura,” as defined by Walter Benjamin — the unique presence of an artwork that is lost in mechanical reproduction. In today’s digital era, where images are endlessly copied and circulated, these young artists attempt to reclaim that lost sense of presence through material, memory and space.
Set across a single floor to ensure every piece receives equal attention, the show is arranged like a flowing river of light. Each artwork functions like a drifting particle — independent, glowing, yet part of a larger current.
One of the most direct reflections on contemporary life comes from Qin Chao, whose work “Vanishing Childhood” depicts a child with eyes blindfolded, set against a chaotic urban backdrop. The piece questions how screens and digital devices are reshaping innocence, and whether today’s children are losing their capacity for unfiltered wonder.
Zong Qirun brings a striking contrast through his ink-and-coffee landscapes. A graduate of traditional Chinese painting, he merges brush techniques with everyday materials like coffee grounds to express a philosophy of “painting from within.” His series “Just the Mountains” is calm but confident, suggesting that Generation Z artists aren’t afraid to reinterpret heritage with a modern twist.
Meanwhile, Yang Binghe, a master’s student at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, constructs wooden sculptures by stacking and assembling materials found in daily life. These subconscious arrangements result in forms that feel both industrial and deeply personal, like fragments of memory caught between function and poetry.
Several artists take a more introspective, emotionally atmospheric approach. Wang Xiran explores the subtle tension between realism and surrealism, using ambiguous interior spaces as a stage for emotional undercurrents. In his “Cloud and Moon” series, fluffy clouds and a pale moon unexpectedly appear in a room, framed by doors and windows. The calm palette and controlled brushwork freeze time within the composition, creating a dreamlike stillness.
Meng Tao turns his gaze toward nature’s smallest participants: insects, weeds and leaves. In his finely detailed works, each organism is given a distinct role, expressing the idea that nothing in nature is accidental. His series is deeply meditative, inviting viewers to slow down and notice what’s usually overlooked.
In another corner, Zeng Jiajia uses mineral pigments and draws on influences from Chinese murals and Japanese esthetics. Her work explores the quiet tension between nature, time and emotion. Based in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Zeng embraces rough textures and shimmering materials to evoke a sense of purity, while her geometric compositions hint at social constraints.
Urban life, generational pressure and identity are recurring themes. Chen Haoran creates surreal scenes where people drift through dim, unfamiliar spaces, watched over by silent plants. Using collage and muted tones, he blurs identity and place, reflecting the quiet pressure of modern life. His works capture a sense of emotional dislocation — youth caught between confusion, struggle and the search for meaning.
Meng Chengxiao builds kinetic installations that look like small, self-contained worlds. His work often explores the balance between order and unpredictability, nature and machinery. In “Harmonic,” sand falls through a turning device, leaving different patterns each time, like tiny, random changes in the universe. As the machine repeats this cycle again and again, it creates a quiet rhythm that reflects how life moves between repetition and surprise.
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