Border(line)

In Border(line), these works appear alongside others in various media by contemporary artists whose practices investigate the tensions between interior and exterior states of being, memory and reality, and nature and the built environment. 
 
Chinese painter Hu Xiaoyuan has created two new works for the exhibition that exemplify her nuanced perception and philosophical reflections on human nature, combining traces of the everyday and natural materials such as wood, silk, and marble in a sensitive exploration of the impermanence of time and the tension between interior states and external structures. A painting from Beijing and Chengdu–based Xie Nanxing’s Postcard series showcases the artist incorporating traditional techniques into his contemporary canvases, resulting in an abstract composition that exposes the potentials and limitations of the self as it interacts with nature. London–based Thai painter James Prapaithong presents a monumentally scaled diptych whose blurred, nostalgia-tinged imagery is reminiscent of a film still or found photograph. 
 
Hong Kong–based artist Wong Ping’s hallucinatory and humorous animated video Sorry for the late reply (2021)—which was commissioned by the New Museum, New York, for his 2021 solo exhibition—explores the friction between personal desire and societal pressures. 
 
Together, these artists present a multifaceted, cross-generational, and transcultural vision of twenty-first-century life, one that is shaped and reshaped by constantly changing borders, both real and imagined.

Chen Wei (b. 1980) works across photography and installation to construct cinematic, dreamlike scenes that reflect the psychological landscape of urban China. His meticulously staged images capture moments of stillness within the flux of modernization, offering nuanced meditations on solitude and youth culture in a rapidly transforming society. 
 
Hu Xiaoyuan (b. 1977) is a prominent voice in contemporary Chinese art; she was the first female Chinese artist to be invited to participate in Documenta, in 2007. With a post-minimalist philosophical rigor, Hu implements organic materials like wood, insects, silk, and hair in materially rich installations. Her practice addresses the impermanence of time and the tension between interior states and external structures, rendering fragility and resilience as coexisting forces. 
 
James Prapaithong (b. 1996) is noted for his contemplative and atmospheric paintings, which employ soft, diffused forms and layered textures inspired by water, stars, and the sky. Often derived from personal photographs, his canvases evoke the soft glow of intimate moments, inviting quiet reflection on memory, loss, and the elusive nature of place. 
 
Prae Pupityastaporn’s (b. 1981) paintings contemplate the body, language, and material as intertwined forces and frequently depict elements of landscape that convey the subjectivity of memory. Rooted in feminist discourse and both Thai and German cultural references—Pupityastaporn studied art in Dusseldorf—her practice critically addresses systems of power and representation through tactile, embodied storytelling. 
 
Wong Ping (b. 1984) creates vivid, provocative animations that blend absurdist humor with incisive social critique. Combining surreal narratives with aesthetics borrowed from pop culture, his practice explores themes of repression, morality, and political friction, unveiling hidden desires and tensions beneath the surface of contemporary life in Hong Kong. 
 
Xie Nanxing (b. 1970) makes conceptually driven paintings that challenge the boundaries of image-making through visual interference and erasure. His approach, a confluence of Chinese and Western figurative traditions, resists fixed interpretation, instead opening up unstable fields of perception where memory, image, and abstraction intersect.